After months of speculation, Slipknot have finally confirmed their seventh album: The End, So Far. The Nine are set to return next month with twelve more percussive metal anthems – and may be marking the end of an era as they move on from longtime label Roadrunner Records. Here’s everything we know about Corey Taylor and company’s next opus:
What is the new Slipknot album called?
Slipknot’s upcoming seventh album is called The End, So Far. The title was confirmed on July 19, with the release of second single, The Dying Song (Time To Sing). The name is likely a reference to the fact that this marks the end of Slipknot’s contract with Roadrunner Records. Ahead of their debut album in 1999, the Nine signed a seven-album, $500,000 deal with the label, which they’ve now fulfilled.
“What I can tell you right now is that we are getting off of our record label,” percussionist and founder Shawn “Clown” Crahan said to Forbes last year. “This is a very fascinating time in my life because I’ve lost both of my parents and if they were alive my dad would be so excited that I have fulfilled a contract.”
When is the new Slipknot album released?
The End, So Far will come out on September 30, 2022, barely three years after Slipknot released We Are Not Your Kind in August 2019. This marks the shortest gap between the band’s studio albums since Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses came out in May 2004, two years and nine months after Iowa dropped in August 2001.
We can thank the lack of live music during the pandemic for a new Slipknot album coming so quickly. After touring in support of We Are Not Your Kind was cut off prematurely, the band started writing, then recorded during the “tail end” of the pandemic.
Who is playing on the new Slipknot album?
The End, So Far is the first Slipknot album to feature new member Michael Pfaff, who plays custom percussion alongside Clown. His predecessor, Chris Fehn, split with Slipknot on March 18, 2019, four days after suing his bandmates over perceived unfairness in the amount he was being paid. Pfaff didn’t play on We Are Not Your Kind, but joined in time to be included in the album’s promotional materials and music videos. His identity wasn’t confirmed until March this year; up until then, fans called him “Tortilla Man” due to his crispy-looking mask.
The rest of the lineup is the same as it was on We Are Not Your Kind: Corey Taylor (vocals), Shawn “Clown” Crahan (percussion), Jim Root and Mick Thomson (guitars), Alessandro “V-Man” Venturella (bass), Jay Weinberg (drums), Sid Wilson (turntables) and Craig Jones (keyboards and samples).
What will the new Slipknot album sound like?
In a July 2022 interview with Kerrang!, Corey Taylor called The End, So Far a “darker version” of their third album, 2004’s Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. “To me, Vol. 3 was really the most expansive album that we had done, up to that point,” he said. “It was the thing that kind of pushed the boundaries for everybody, you know? We were able to experiment with different styles of music, and really show people that there was so much more depth to what we do. And I kind of feel like that’s what this album is doing.”
He continued: “In a way it is [also] an extension of We Are Not Your Kind, but to me, the songs are better, the structuring is better. We’re able to kind of take it even further, and after 23 years professionally, being able to say that there’s ground that we haven’t covered yet, and there’s ground that we’re excited to cover, is cool.”
What singles are on the new Slipknot album?
At time of publication, three singles from The End, So Far have been released: The Chapeltown Rag, The Dying Song (Time To Sing) and Yen. Chapeltown… is an extreme metal rager that came out on November 5, 2021, before the album was even announced. The anthemic groove metal track The Dying Song followed on July 19, the same day that we learned The End, So Far’s title and release date. And Yen is the most recent single: an escalating power ballad that we first heard on August 5.
What are the lyrics to The Chapeltown Rag about?
The lyrics of The End, So Far’s lead single, The Chapeltown Rag, allude to the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, also known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe killed thirteen women and attempted to murder seven more between 1975 and 1980. One of his murders was of a sixteen-year-old girl in Chapeltown (a suburb of Leeds), which inspired the single’s title.
According to singer and lyricist Corey Taylor, The Chapeltown Rag uses Sutcliffe and the intense attention his killings drew as a metaphor for modern media and “fake news”. “It’s coming from a point of talking about the various manipulations that can happen when social media meets media itself,” he explained in a statement. “And the different ways that these manipulations can try to pull us in different directions, in the fact that we’re all becoming addicts to it, which is very, very dangerous.”
What is the new Slipknot album artwork?
The artwork of The End, So Far is an abstract orange and red piece that gets blacker and more distorted towards the top-right. There’s been speculation among fans as to what it’s depicting and what it actually means. Some say that there is a face (or maybe even two) in the mass of different colours, with others positing that it’s a distorted closeup of the figure that we saw on the artwork for the Chapeltown Rag single.
The Slipknot logo appears in jet black in the bottom-left, and is the same design that we’ve seen on every album of theirs, except for 2008’s All Hope Is Gone.
What is The End, So Far's tracklist?
The End, So Far has twelve songs, three of which have already been released. At time of publication, the total runtime of the album is unknown. Here’s the complete The End, So Far track list:
1. Adderall
2. The Dying Song (Time To Sing)
3. The Chapeltown Rag
4. Yen
5. Hivemind
6. Warranty
7. Medicine For The Dead
8. Acidic
9. Heirloom
10. H377
11. De Sade
12. Finale
What are the new Slipknot masks for The End, So Far?
Corey Taylor was the first to unveil a new mask for the latest chapter of Slipknot, debuting a gnarly new look in September last year. Taylor's latest visage seems to take inspiration from the All Hope Is Gone era, channelling the loose look of that mask through a terrifying new filter. Now, the rest of the band have caught up (though as usual, Jim Root, Mick Thomson and Craig Jones' masks haven't strayed very far from the look they've been donning for years).
Shawn Crahan - who tends to wear a variety of masks through each Slipknot chapter - appeared in recent promo shots wearing a shiny silver Clown face, while Sid Wilson was shown wearing a mask that looked like a nightmarish take on Watchmen favourite Rorschach (though the recent video for Yen suggests Wilson's new mask has had an LED makeover). Jay Weinberg and V-Man are sporting updated versions of their old masks, Weinberg's a ghoulish, off-white take and V-Man's a leathery red, while Tortilla Man's new mask looks like his previous version was chucked in a blender. Grim.
The End, So Far is out on September 30 via Roadrunner
