(Credit: Wikimedia / Far Out)
Sat 10 January 2026 21:17, UK
If we ignore 1997’s demo record Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat, the first two proper Slipknot records are two of the greatest metal albums of all time. Argue among yourselves if you disagree, but very few bands have arrived onto the collective consciousness and demanded such attention from the entire world.
The 1999 self-titled LP introduced the world to one of the hardest-hitting and fucked up bands we would ever lay our eyes and ears on, and then 2001’s Iowa expanded on that initial sound, cementing Slipknot’s place in the pantheon of the all-time metal greats.
The group managed to quickly traverse the usually wagon-drawn circle of metal and reach a wide republic. Across tiny towns in leafy England, masks were being bought, worn and screamed into all in the name of the newest rebellious group on the block. The albums changed the spectrum of music as we knew it.
To an extent, Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses) was an equally great record, although the band began to experiment with more traditional song structures, and vocalist Corey Taylor began to sing more rather than scream as we had become accustomed to. From there, however, Slipknot became something of a messy force and inter-band conflicts, as well as personal tragedies, led the next few records to lack the intensity and quality as the earlier output.
Ahead of the release of We Are Not Your Kind in 2019, Corey Taylor reflected on the fourth and fifth Slipknot albums in an interview, and when questioned as to whether he saw the band’s sixth full-length studio effort as a new beginning following the death of bassist Paul Grey, he responded, “Well, I’ve never really thought about it in that way, but yes, I guess it is, in a way. I feel like this is our first proper album in a long while.”
Not your average family BBQ. (Credits: Slipknot)
He continued: “5. The Grey Chapter was a really difficult album to make because we were under the shadow of a lot of things. Not least of which, we were all trying to get out our feelings about having lost Paul in 2010, and that was the first opportunity we had to do that, so there was some pain involved there for sure.”
Going back an album further, Taylor had worse things to say about All Hope Is Gone. He said: “Then there was All Hope Is Gone, which, in my opinion, was such a fucking abysmal experience for a lot of people that… even though that album has some of our strongest songs on it, ironically, it was just… I think it was just soured by then due to what was going on at the time.”
All Hope Is Gone was recorded in Iowa because of the distractions that Los Angeles – where the band had recorded their first three albums – provided. Taylor, however, perhaps had distractions of his own and drove home to see his son every night; a touching move, but possibly taking away from the energy required to put his all into recording the album. Root had also expressed dissatisfaction with producer Dave Fortman, saying that the album made him “appreciate” the work of Rick Rubin from the previous albums even more.
In a separate interview with Metal Injection in 2015, in which he ranked the Slipknot albums, Taylor said, “Just because of the experience around it—it has nothing to do with a lot of the music—but I have to say my least favourite is All Hope is Gone. So it was really difficult to get that album made in the first place, and it was difficult to get everyone on the same page going out on the road.”
“It was a miserable two years,” he added. “One of the only reasons I can look back fondly on it is I got to spend a lot of time with Paul Gray. So other than that, the rest of it was so much hard work and pulling teeth, I have a hard time listening to that album without conjuring up terrible memories of what happened.”
After the success of the first three Slipknot records, perhaps the winds had been taken out of the metal band’s sails just a touch. However, there was likely pressure to continue to succeed and give back to the fans with another excellent record. Guitarist Jim Root, amongst most other members of Slipknot, felt that the record had been rushed.
All Hope Is Gone was the last Slipknot album to feature Paul Grey before his death and drummer Joey Jordison before he was fired from the band in 2013. At least Taylor and Slipknot would have the memories of recording with Grey, even if the results and the actual process to achieve them were not what they had always been hoping for.
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