Aborted

I know there's a thread dealing with new Slipknot, but I read through it and it's not really relevant to anything now the album has leaked. What I'm after are the opinions of people who have heard it all the way through.

Now, I know Slipknot aren't the most popular of bands, especially with those who believe that because they listen to and enjoy four or more different genres of music their opinions should be taken as gospel. Please, vacate your golden thrones atop your plateaus of musical knowledge and open your minds for a second. All I ask for is honesty and respect for the opinions of others, and you all seem to be rather good at that.

The views of an ex-slipknot fan who was fast losing faith:

I burned the cd at work and experienced a plethora of odd emotions as I travelled home, namely excitement, surprise at my excitement, and shock at my surprise. An hour later and I'm sitting in my room, feet up on the desk and relaxing in my chair, ready to give the album a proper listen through. I'll admit that while I tried to approach it with an open mind, I was feeling a fair bit of scepticism based on the songs I'd already heard. That's not to say that they were bad, but they didn't really set my flammable spot aflame in the way I had hoped they would.

Fast forward to this morning. I've listened through (beginning to end) three times, listened to it quietly once (last night to send me to sleep), listened to it on the way to work and as I write I'm listening to it again in a deserted office. Each time it's given me goosebumps and this weird feeling akin to freefalling, only not quite.

This is Slipknot's masterpiece, and puts their other work to shame. It's the perfect blend of experimentation, brutality, atmosphere and melody, and all of these flavours are perfectly balanced and incorporated with overwhelming effect in some of the most expertly crafted songs I've heard in a long time, in any genre. I cannot stress the amount of atmosphere it has enough, there's this beautifully gloomy, sad vibe that underlines the mellow tracks and explodes into anger ever time the band dare get heavy. What's more amazing is that it's all still tongue in cheek, still fun, and it takes a very special kind of band to pull off something like that. They touch on so many styles yet always tie them back to a sound that belongs exclusively to Slipknot.

They've lost nothing of their old sound, their trademark stomp (ala Surfacing) is still there, the groove factor is more present than ever and the sense of musical insanity has been increased ten fold by better playing. They've mastered the art of the slow, sludgy song with a flair that many doom bands lack, and the quality of the acoustic tracks surpass many artists who base their careers around crooning.

My scepticism has been silenced, and I'm incredibly relieved/glad/overwhelmed because of it.