In November last year, Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan told Metal Hammer that while they were working on 2008’s All Hope Is Gone, he and three other members of the band also recorded an album’s worth of other material.
Crahan, Jim Root, Corey Taylor and Sid Wilson set up in a separate studio to record Look Outside Your Window, with one of the songs Til We Die appearing on the digipak release of All Hope Is Gone.
Crahan said: “There’s a big collection of music, it’s fucking really amazing. It’s so amazing it had to be held back to wait for the right time – it’s been 10 years. It wasn’t going to be one of those things to loosely go out and confuse everyone, and piss everyone off.
"I’m not going to put music out to spite people – we do things the right way in this camp. The right way is that sooner or later, people need to be made aware of it because it’s the truth. It happened.
“We spent time doing it, we worked it every day, we mixed it, we mastered it, there’s artwork. It’s amazing stuff. But it’s all got to be right in the story of Slipknot.”
Now, in a new interview with SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Taylor has spoken about the musical direction on the recordings – and revealed it’s very different from what people would expect from Slipknot.
He says: “We've been trying to find a way to release those songs for god knows how long. We had two different studios going on. And one group of guys was recording what ended up becoming Look Outside Your Window and then the bulk of the band was making All Hope Is Gone.
"The stuff from Look Outside Your Window is experimental, but it’s super vibey, super melodic. It's really good. It's hard to explain. There's something about those songs.
“They're very solemn, very energetic, very artistic. For people who are used to a certain way of Slipknot sounding, this doesn't sound anything like that. It's much more of a rock vibe. Honestly, it's much more of a Radiohead vibe to be honest.”
No release date for the 2008 material has been revealed, but Taylor recently told Loudwire that it should be out “sometime in this album cycle” – referring to latest record We Are Not Your Kind.
Slipknot are currently on their Knotfest Roadshow with special guests Volbeat, Gojira and Behemoth and last week announced details of their 2020 UK and European tour.