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Best Albums Of 2022 | 3. Slipknot - 'The End, So Far'
57 Plays1 year ago
In anticipation for the Minds Of Metal ‘Album Of The Year’ for 2022, Laz counts down albums 5 to 2 for the year!
Album Number 3 is Slipknot’s ‘The End, So Far’!
You can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw
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Transcript
Introduction to Best Album Series
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi there guys and welcome to Minds of Metal. So as usual with these videos, you should be used to it by now. Dash is not with me on these ones because these are around the solo videos that we decided we'd do every now and then. So this is, as I've said before in the previous videos, this is our countdown to the best album of 2022. So New Year's Eve, this year, you're going to get a video from me and Daria that's going to be a proper in-depth review of our favourite album of 2022.
00:00:35
Speaker
But I thought I got too many other albums that I enjoyed as well. So I thought I'd do these little videos in the build up to New Year's Eve to tell you about my favourite albums of 2022.
Slipknot's 'The End So Far' - Public Opinions and Analysis
00:00:46
Speaker
So in fifth place we had The Great Heathen Army by AIMON and MATH. In fourth place, which was last week's video, we did Parkway Drive, Darker Still. And in third place is Slipknot, The End So Far. So I'll tell you my thoughts on the album briefly before I dig a bit deeper into it.
00:01:05
Speaker
It's an interesting odd one because a lot of people, you go on their Facebook, you go on their Instagram, and a lot of people did not like this album. And if I'm honest, I don't know why. I don't entirely know why people didn't like the album. There are elements that I didn't like. There are songs I don't really get on with. But as an album, I thought it was pretty consistent with the last few Slipknot albums we've had, as well as paying homage to early Slipknot as well. But that's just me, you know, that's just me.
00:01:37
Speaker
Let's get into it. So I think the most contentious and controversial part of this album is the first song, which is called Adderall. And I loved it. Honestly, I thought it was fantastic. Just so different and unique. I mean, if you're a band like Slipknot who have got 30 years of history behind you, almost 30 years of history behind you, it's like
00:01:56
Speaker
Why can you not try and dare to be different and do different things? It's not like the whole album sounded like Adderall and every song was kind of like that odd indie rock sort of thing. It's just the first song and everything after that was kind of old Slipknot. Again we'll get into the bones of it in a minute but I don't know I just thought it was great. I thought
00:02:15
Speaker
It reminded me of that there's a band, an indie band called Elbow, and Corey's voice in this song sounds just like the singer. I think he's called, is it Guy Garvey? Guy Harvey or something. Then he'd sing that. The chorus vocal line was so jazzy, just the way that all the voices worked together, the harmonies, each layer of each voice produced this chord that sounded so jazzy. I thought it was really lovely.
00:02:41
Speaker
Anyway, we'll move on from that because I know it's not a lot of people's favourites. Track two, The Dying Song and track three, Chappletown Rag. I thought these were great songs because I felt moments from new Slipknot and old Slipknot in there. Let me talk quickly about new and old Slipknot.
00:02:56
Speaker
New Slipknot, I think All Hope is Gone to Now, and Old Slipknot, I think everything pre All Hope is Gone. They just had this thing with their music, maybe Volume 3 was the change, you know, you had the debut album and you had Iowa, Volume 3, then All Hope is Gone, We Are Not Your Kind, great chapter, you know, so I think maybe Volume 3 sits in the middle as the changeover between the two eras.
Musical Style and Influences in Slipknot's Music
00:03:22
Speaker
And I felt these songs both had elements of new and old Slipknot. You know, you've got the electronic intro of Chapel Town Rag really reminded me of Eyeless. The chorus was very heavy and reminiscent of Iowa era Slipknot. The outro of Chapel Town Rag was heavy as well.
00:03:39
Speaker
The dying song i thought the intro vocals and chorus were very much like a new slip not you know focusing on singing a nice melodic vocals as opposed to just shouting but then mix that with the heavier elements of the old slip not which is why i really enjoyed the first two songs. Yen as well is another song i really really enjoyed i thought
00:03:59
Speaker
It has a lovely way of building the layers of the song and getting you from the start to the finish by developing and keeping interesting. If you guys watched the video last week about Parkway Drive, I mentioned the song If a God Can Bleed, which was kind of based around like one piano riff and Winston, the singer from Parkway Drive, kind of narrates over and talks over that. Quite similar in this as well. I thought
00:04:25
Speaker
What was really nice about this is it was heavy song. It had a heavy chorus and a heavy, you know, the heaviness through it. But the guitar riffs were very simple compared to normal Slipknot. I mean, if you listen to the song warranty from this album, the guitar riffs are very complicated and very intricate. But then Yen, they're just much more simplified. But I don't feel like it takes away or it lessens the song in any way. I thought it was really, really good song.
00:04:49
Speaker
It is overproduced, there's a lot of production on it and a lot of effects, and I'm going to talk about the production at the end, but I think it works because they're kind of going for this odd atmospheric feeling about it. And when there's less going on instrumentally, it means you can allow yourself more space for special effects and for electronic sounds to creep in. But yeah, Yen is a favor of mine, I have to say.
00:05:12
Speaker
Hive Mind was great, you know, this really groovy verse and pre-chorus and what I mean by that is Slip Not Have This Way, I think I come over the name of the band member, the guy who hits the barrel all day. Now if you're counting, I'm not going to get too theoretical here, but if you're counting beats and you've got one, two, three, four,
00:05:32
Speaker
If you accent beats 2 and beats 4 it makes the song groovy. Now this applies normally to jazz if you're playing a jazz bassline. If you accent 1 and 3 it's not going to groove as well. If you accent 2 and 4
00:05:50
Speaker
It kind of, you just want to swing a bit more. And the same applies for metal. That's where groove metal comes from. Listen to Cowboys From Hell by Pantera. The accent. And Slipknot do this. And it's almost signature Slipknot. They do it all the time.
00:06:07
Speaker
And accenting that two and four really does just make you want to move and it grooves. So I thought that was really cool, a really cool aspect of Hive Mind. It's a very, very heavy song and there's a few that fall into a bracket of what I'm going to say. Maybe Hive Mind, Warranty, H377, which my friend told me actually meant hell, which I didn't see that before. Anyway, I feel slip not have this very fine line between
00:06:33
Speaker
Heavy and messy and I think in the past I'm happy to admit as a big Slipknot fan some of their stuff has been messy for me Some stuff on Iowa. I thought was just to it. There's just too much going on It's too heavy and I'm not gonna be like, oh heavy that was too noisy. I
00:06:49
Speaker
But it's just like, you know, I think some of you get what I mean. There is a fine line between just being very heavy and being messy. And I feel hive mind is just ever so slightly sitting on that line. But I thought it was on the correct side of the line. It just did enough to remain heavy without being messy. And I thought it was a really cool song.
00:07:08
Speaker
um warranty i mean yeah same like the song before it had a really nice dynamic change in the bridge actually where it brings it down a bit i thought that was nice um now the next two songs are kind of interesting it's medicine for the dead and acidic and you're kind of getting this kind of if we're calling
00:07:25
Speaker
debut to volume three old Slipknot and all hope has gone to now new Slipknot then we're going to get a new new Slipknot category where they're playing with these very atmospheric sounds where they're going very heavy on the production the effects and the electronic sides.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's the atmosphere there is nice, but it sets up this kind of weirdness for the rest of the song. I enjoyed the change of pace in the vocals. You know, we've heard screaming and shouting all the way up to now, but you've got a singing verse and then it goes back to the heavy shouting vocals for the pre-chorus. Now, I didn't mention this in the start, but I felt, or no did I, about the jazzy kind of vocal line in Adderall.
00:08:08
Speaker
funnily enough jazz is going to be something that I come back to a few times in this little sort of review. The dissonance and the chromaticism in the chorus of Medicine for the Dead is very interesting because it does have that jazzy feel. It's just this descending line but it plays really nicely with the chords that are behind it and just setting up that dissonance and just making you feel a little uneasy going oh what's that but then
00:08:35
Speaker
as it's it's completely released so again not going to get too theoretical but in jazz you have tension where you build up and you play solos and you play the wrong notes and then you release it by playing the right notes and i feel like this little do a lot of this in this album um the song is civic i didn't really get on with this song it didn't really do much for me um but i did enjoy the chorus i thought it was really weird really atmospheric and it kind of did the same thing like in medicine for the dead um and so linking back to the jazzness of it is almost proggy in the sense that
00:09:05
Speaker
the way they're playing with these chords and harmonies is quite progressive you know i don't really hear too many other metal bands paying this much attention to the harmonies and chords they're playing behind a vocal line and i thought that was a really nice element of the song um heirloom interesting because i think the intro was very promising and really heavy and i thought it had a lot
00:09:26
Speaker
that could have gone well. But then when the vocals come in, it kind of just felt a bit stone soury to me. Didn't really do anything. I didn't think it was a special song, but it's good and I could listen to it again. Hell or H377. This is a nice return because after a time away from this new atmospheric slipknot, it comes back and we kind of get hints of early slipknot with the rapping vocals really heavy. Again, the fine line between heavy and messy that I thought they kind of just got right with this one.
00:09:56
Speaker
I'm not going to spend too much time on Desar because it wasn't for me. I didn't really like the song. I honestly thought that the album could have done without it, but some like it, some don't. Just not for me, this one. And Finale, I thought this one was really good. Really enjoyed this song. I love the way it build layer by layer. The string section is lovely and the vocal performance from Kori is really, really nice.
00:10:19
Speaker
and the choral aspect of the song with the choir coming in at various stages and adding to those layers I thought was really cool. It's kind of like we've kind of gone full circle because you got the choir didn't you at the start of, oh no you got the vocals in Adderall.
00:10:37
Speaker
And you've kind of come full circle with that sort of choir coming back for the finale. And I thought there was a really cool and heavy bridge in
Album Structure and Personal Review
00:10:45
Speaker
there. So yeah, they're my thoughts on song by song. In terms of summing up the album and why it's my third favourite of the year.
00:10:55
Speaker
I feel like, actually I'll talk about the production first, I feel like Corey's vocals, I think the performance wise and execution wise, I think his vocals are stunning. I think they sound incredible. His singing is brilliant, his shouting is brilliant, his screaming is brilliant. I kind of feel that the production lets it down a bit on this side. I feel like with Slipknot, you're used to and prepared for this raw,
00:11:21
Speaker
unaltered heaviness of growls and I feel like overproducing is of a detriment to this album and especially his vocals. I think it makes it slightly weaker.
00:11:34
Speaker
His vocals did all the work, but the overproduction may have taken away that raw feeling. And sometimes I feel that less is more. Sometimes if you just kind of let Corey do his thing and don't produce it and affect it so much, maybe it would have been better. Nothing taken away, though. Vocal performance was fantastic. But there's just something in every song. We're just like, I can't even put my finger on it. I'm not a producer. I'm not a sound engineer. I can't really tell you the minute aspects of it, but just my feeling towards it.
00:12:04
Speaker
I thought that the majority of songs were good songs in terms of their songwriting, but it didn't quite feel like they gelled together. It felt like maybe a couple of guys bought, or maybe some guy bought this song and someone else bought that song, that guy wrote three songs, and they just bundled these songs together.
00:12:23
Speaker
So yeah that was interesting because songs like Heirloom I liked it but it just didn't feel like it fitted in line with the other songs. Adderall too I suppose you could say it despite the fact I loved it you could say that about Adderall but again I think when you have a first song of an album you're allowed to do something kind of crazy because then what follows is what the album's really about.
00:12:46
Speaker
So I love, and I mean love, the first half of the album. The first seven songs I think are phenomenal, and I think it's among Slipknot's best writing. I think you've got elements of early Slipknot. I think you've got also the good aspects, the anthemic choruses of new Slipknot. But for me, everything after Medicine for the Dead is kind of a bit jumbled. There's songs I like, there's songs I think are good, especially Finale. But I don't know, there's a
00:13:15
Speaker
There's a cohesion from songs 1 to 7 that I didn't feel from 7 to 12, and that's where I feel the album's let down. But in the end, listen, it's my third favourite album of 2022. Darker Still's amazing. The Great Heathen Army's amazing. There's stuff in the next video I'm going to talk about, honourable mentions that didn't get a video, that were brilliant albums. But yes, still, this Slipknot one has made it for me. And that's because of the quality of the songwriting.
00:13:38
Speaker
the first half of the album is immaculate in my opinion and I think this album is just a fantastic amalgamation of everything Slipknot have done from the debut album to We Are Not Your Kind it feels like they've learned from each aspect not necessarily learned but
00:13:54
Speaker
Okay, maybe learn, learn and take aspects from each of these albums and put them together to give us the end so far, or for me at least the first seven songs of the end so far. So yeah, for that reason
Conclusion and Future Content
00:14:06
Speaker
that is why Slipknot the End So Far is my third favourite album of 2022.
00:14:11
Speaker
So join us again next week, or join me again next week, where I'm going to give you my second favourite album of 2022. And then New Year's Eve this year, myself and Daria are going to bring you a nice big video of our favourite album of 2022. So as usual guys, please hit like, subscribe, share it with anyone you know loves Slipknot or metal. And thank you for joining us on the Minds of Metal. Have a metal day.