Released to mark the 15th anniversary of their fourth album All Hope Is Gone, Live At MSG – previously released as part of the album's 10th anniversary edition, but now available on vinyl for the first time – captures Slipknot in a particularly venomous mood at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The band’s classic nine-man lineup, the late Joey Jordison and Paul Gray included, remain a benchmark for barely controlled chaos, and this 77-minute sensory blitzkrieg demonstrates why. It’s still one of the great miracles of our time that a band this obnoxious and heavy have notched up multiple chart-topping feats.
As they rip through the untamed likes of Eyeless, Get This and Purity, Slipknot sound like a single deranged and destructive organism, and it’s a spectacle as mesmerising now as it was when this album was recorded in 2009.
In particular, Disasterpiece is breathtakingly unpleasant. A few months later, Slipknot headlined Download for the first time and absolutely took the place apart. New York should have warned us what was coming. They were probably too traumatised.
