Slipknot – All Out Life


Easily one of the most anticipated albums of 2019, the new Slipknot album is sure to be picked over and examined by fans and the entirety of the music press. The album will be the follow up to 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter (Roadrunner) and their sixth overall. The band is in the top echelon in the world for heavy music, and even kvlt and underground bands that feel unaffected by the heaviest commercial band out there, are indeed impacted by a Slipknot release. In short, this band is good for metal. The kid that discovers Slipknot today, may find Carcass, or Imperial Triumphant, or Bell Witch tomorrow. Anyway, the band dropped a b-bomb on Halloween when ‘All Out Life’ (Roadrunner) was surprised released.

‘All Out Life’ came along just three weeks after a video was shot for it, but Corey Taylor admitted that band has actually been working on music for two years. Sonically, the song fits right in with Slipknot’s last album, and while they were promising Iowa levels of heaviness in recent press, the track is not quite as unrelenting. Still, some of the DNA of the track can be found in that seminal `Knot release too: dramatic intro, blastbeats, rant/chanted vocal breakdowns, gang vocals, death, and black metal guitar nods and more. Slipknot always seems best when they create a crazy cacophony and make ugly, but lovely. They do this by injecting sick melodies into the chaos, earworms where there are maelstroms of beats and DJ scratches, and gnarly riffs.

 

Corey Taylor is pissed off again ladies and gents. At once giving some of his most wordy, intellectual and vitriolic lyrics ever (and that is saying something), Taylor attacks the American system that feasts on the apathy of its citizens. While politicians talk about unity, he demands it and paints a bleak picture of what we have when it’s absent. ‘All Out Life’ offers a wake-up call to the sleeping sheeple. And it can’t come soon enough.

And neither can this new Slipknot album. Choose life…

8.0/10

KEITH CHACHKES

‘All Out Life’ lyrics

[Verse 1]

What a world, the horizon

It’s coming like a hell-bent killing machine

Can’t afford to be the goddamn wreckage

Burn it all again at a million degrees

Calling all the adamant upper-level

Undefeated counterfeit cunts with a reason to fear

Throw away all the meaningless shit that’s clinging

The enemy is here, I said stop

[Pre-Chorus 1]

Give it to 3

I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean

One by one against, give me the name

All you shiny pretty never-wills ruined the game

You hold all the keys so the chains shouldn’t hold you

I know you heard me, I fucking told you

[Chorus]

Old does not mean dead

New does not mean best

No hard feelings

I’m tired of being right

About everything I’ve said

Yours does not mean mine

Kill does not mean die

We are not your kind

No excuses

I challenge you to all-out fucking life

[Verse 2]

Drop that shit and put it on a pedestal

Children are afraid of the gods

Raise your hands and show me what’s impossible

That makes us even, never tell me the odds

What a bore, getting stuck in a metaphor

I don’t want to go to sleep

I need a breakdown quick in negotiations

Get it all together and remember to seethe, stop

[Pre-Chorus 2]

Give it to 3

I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean

Drive by violence, more of the same

I can see where you’re going and I’m really ashamed

Do you think when you act or just act like you’re thinking?

I got to know now, you better tell me

[Chorus]

Old does not mean dead

New does not mean best

No hard feelings

I’m tired of being right

About everything I’ve said

Yours does not mean mine

Kill does not mean die

We are not your kind

I challenge you to all-out life

[Interlude]

We are gathered here today to get it right

Repeat after me:

“I will not celebrate mediocrity

I will not worship empty shells

I will not listen to worthless noises

I will not subject myself to selected predictable choices

My time, my attention

My quality should not be bought and sold

For convenience’s sake, ever!”

[Refrain]

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

We are not your kind

[Chorus]

Old does not mean dead (Hey!)

New does not mean best (Hey!)

No hard feelings

I’m tired of being right

About everything I’ve said

Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)

Kill does not mean die (Die!)

Pay attention

It’s gonna be a while ’til I really feel alright

Old does not mean dead (Hey!)

New does not mean best (Hey!)

No hard feelings

I’m tired of being right

About everything I’ve said

Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)

Kill does not mean die (Die!)

We are not your kind

No excuses

I challenge you to all-out fucking life

[Outro]

All-out life

Yeah

I challenge you to all-out fucking life

Yeah

(Live! Live! Live! Life!)