Sara Hammerzmith

TODAY IT FINALLY CAME. It was originally released yesterday, but I didn’t get it until today. Really though – it doesn’t matter. FINALLY.

Alright, so The Gray Chapter. It’s been six years since the Knot gave out an album, and this marks their fifth with the name being a homage to the late Paul Gray. I can’t tell you enough how excited I was for this album, and even now when I have it I can’t seem to grasp it’s actually HERE! My lord!

Anyway, with all this being said… let’s talk music, shall we?

I have always said, at least to my friends ever since “Custer” was released, that this album was going to be an absolute killer. And that’s what you’d expect you know, after six years of complete silence.

And you know what?

It is a fucking killer, excuse the french.

I’ve had the album on repeat ever since it came, and I just can’t stop listening to it. All from the terrifying “XIX” (yes, terrifying, I get chills, it feels like Corey’s gonna come and kill me or something) into the aggressive “Scarcastrophe”  to the sweeter “Killpop” to madness in “Custer” and eventually dropping out in “If Rain is What you Want”.

When “The Devil in I” came out I expected the album to be almost like “All Hope Is Gone” – more to the “soft” spectra, rather than their self-titled, but I was dead wrong, and I’m glad I was. Now, “The Devil..” has grown a lot on me ever since, but. The album is like a fine mix between “Iowa” and “Vol 3” with some small, small tiny elements from “All Hope Is Gone”, which is just fine in my opinion. It’s heavy, it’s raw, and the lyrics are as mesmerizing as always. I may have my opinions on Corey, but seriously. That man knows how to write lyrics alright. And I do like to think that the chorus in “Skeptic” is refering to Paul. It breaks my heart a little.

The only thing, if I may say so, that bothers me a tad bit, is that parts of “AOV” reminds me too much of “Dead Memories”. I found myself going “Dead memories in my heart…” when they started chanting in the chorus. The song is good, but perhaps the arrangement was a little too close to the previous one.

Alwaysmaggot asked on Tumblr what your favorite songs of the album was, and I had a hard time choosing. I’m so stuck between “Custer” and “Killpop” mostly, but you know. “Skeptic” is also good. “The Negative One” too. And “Goodbye”. You get the point. I could continue on forever about it. If we talk about the production for a while, I like what they have done with everything. Aside the little… “mishap” in “AOV”, I think it’s a well arranged album, not only in the songs themselves, but also the way they built the CD, the song order. It’s almost like a journey, if you’d like.

Well. As you’ve understood by this entry, I’m mighty impressed by the album. While I did think the album was going to be a killer, I sure as hell didn’t expect it to be THIS good.

Thanks SlipKnot, truly. Thanks.

// Sara

This entry was posted on October 22, 2014 at 11:43 pm and is filed under CDs, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.