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After a six year absence and the loss of two of their members, Slipknot’s new album has a lot to live up to. The band’s attempt to move on from their past while satisfying disillusioned fans who didn’t enjoy the lighter sound of All Hope is Gone seems like an almost impossible balancing act. Fortunately Slipknot seem to be aware of how much they have to prove themselves here, and .5: The Gray Chapter fires on all cylinders.

But simply being a good album may not be enough for some fans. A lot of promises were made about .5 and as a result, everyone had their own ideas about what the album should sound like way before they heard it. For one there was the promise that the compilation album Antennas to Hell would be the end of “old” Slipknot and that .5 would sound completely new. Not only is this achieved, but this new sound is a result of returning to their past. The album is a wonderful mix of all of Slipknot’s previous sounds done in a way that sounds unique yet familiar.

Which brings us to the second promise, that the album would sound like a mix between Iowa and Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. This promise is perhaps less well kept, although I can see where Corey Taylor was coming from. Truth be told, .5 sounds nothing like either of those albums, but it can best be summed up as a cross between the directions taken on them. It takes the experimental nature of Vol. 3 and adds the occasional blast of aggression from Iowa but does so in a way that sounds totally unlike either album.

But setting aside comparisons to their old albums, .5 is a great record in its own right. All nine members bring their all to the table, although special mention has to go to guitarist Jim Root (whose firing from Stone Sour fuelled a lot of the anger found here) and new drummer Jay Weinberg, who really proves himself as capable to take over from Joey Jordison, while still bringing his own style to the band.

What really makes .5 stand out though is its diverseness. From the ironically poppy “Killpop,” to the explosive “Lech” to the incredibly powerful closer “If Rain is What You Want,” the album really succeeds in giving fans the heaviness they crave while still allowing the band to flex their creative muscles.

The album’s one short falling however is in the lyrics. Corey Taylor has never been a great lyricist but some of the lines here really hark back to their self-titled. Particularly the chorus of “Custer,” where Taylor screams “Cut, cut, cut me up/And fuck, fuck, fuck me up.” These kind of juvenile, over-the-top lyrics worked a lot better back in 1999, when they all had the excuse of being a lot younger. Now that Taylor is 40, it comes across as even dumber than it did when he was 25. At other points, he’s clearly relying too much on his trusty thesaurus and choosing words at random, with “The Negative One” being a particularly egregious example.

But overall .5: The Gray Chapter really does hit the mark. The band look back on their past but don’t dwell on it. Instead they take all the rage that they’ve built up over the past six years and channelled it into something creative and powerful. Despite a few weak spots here and there, it does all come together to become an album that’ll rightfully sit with Slipknot’s best.