Two more songs from Slipknot, and hints of possible tour to South Africa

Following on from Sunday's release of Custer, Slipknot have shared two more tracks from their fifth studio album .5: The Gray Chapter:

XIX starts off with some distorted bagpipe sounds, followed by Linkin Park-esque, shouty, emo vocals. It's a weird way to start the album, personally I think the intro to Sarcastrophe would have worked much better

Sarcastrophe is a much better track overall, and possibly one of my favourites from the album so far. Much like Custer, Sarcastrophe could be mistaken for a b-side from the recording sessions from earlier albums.

Even more exciting is the following message posted to the band's Facebook page: 

Hey South Africa, check out our new album “.5: The Grey Chapter”. Pre-Order on iTunes and get songs now!

I'm really hoping this means we will be seeing them on South African shores in the not so distant future.

Slipknot - Custer

Slipknot have released the third track from their forthcoming album .5: The Gray Chapter. From the comments left on YouTube it seems that the fans are divided over Custer. To me Custer sounds a lot like some of the older, Slipknot and Iowa, recordings. This is a good thing. Also the chorus of Custer is dam catchy.

Slipknot: new video, new masks, new member identities

Yesterday Slipknot released the official music video for The devil in I. The video features the new masks worn by the core band members, and reveals the identical masks worn by the two new additions to the band (see below).

The masks of the new members somewhat resemble the Scarecrow mask worn by Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins.

Apart from vocalist Corey Taylor's mask, those of the other band members appear to remain relatively unchanged; Sid Wilson's new look resembles a Deadmau5 helmet with the ears torn off. Chris Fehn's new mask is shinier. Craig Jones' spikes look to be a little longer. Shawn Crahan seems to be wearing one of his own creations. And lastly, Taylor's new mask is multi-layered. The top layer looks like Bad Grandpa from Jackass, while the second layer looks like the Engineer from Prometheus.

From the lack of patches on the new jumpsuits, it appears that the band may also have done away with assigning each member a number.

Apart from revealing the the band's new masks, the video may also have inadvertently revealed the identity of the new bassist. Using a screen grab from the above video, and some promotional photographs posted on Facebook, the detectives over at Metal Chapel identified the the bassist as Alessandro 'Vman' Venturella. Venturella is the guitar-tech for Masotdon's Brent Hinds, plays guitar in the UK based Krokodil, and now replaces Donnie Steele as Slipknot's bassist.

Left: Screen grab from The devil an I video. Right: Photograph of Alessandro Venturella from Krokodil's Facebook page. Note the tattoo on the back of left hand.

Slipknot - .5:The Gray Chapter

A few weeks after releasing The negative one, which was not the official first single, but rather a "gift for the fans" according to vocalist Corey Taylor, Slipknot have now released the official first single, as well as the title of their upcoming fifth studio release.

The audio for the single, The devil in I was released earlier this morning (listen below), while details concerning the the new album were only released a few hours ago.

The album will be titled .5: The Gray Chapter, an obvious homage to late bassist, Paul Gray. As well as the standard 14 track release, .5: The Gray Chapter will also be released in a deluxe edition containing two additional tracks. Here's the list of tracks released via Facebook;

1. XIX
2. Sarcastrophe
3. AOV
4. The devil in I
5. Killpop
6. Skeptic
7. Lech
8. Goodbye
9. Nomadic
10. The one that kills least
11. Custer
12. Be prepared for hell
13. The negative one
14. If rain is what you want
15. Override (bonus track)
16. The burden (bonus track)

In addition to all this news pertaining to the album, Slipknot also announced the North American Hell Tour, with special guests Korn, and King 810. .5: The Gray Chapter will be released on 21 October, with pre-orders available here. Still no word regarding identity of the drummer on the new album though.

The negative one video

Today saw the release of the video for Slipknot's latest single track The negative one. The video was directed by band member Shawn Crahan, and features 'naked' women, severed goat heads, chains, and flowers. I'm guessing the video is meant to depict a ritual of the occult, and get the impression this was done for no reason other than trying to shock the general public.

A double-headed goat icon (above) is shown briefly at the end of the video, which may be the new interpretation of the bands well known 'S' logo.

If you're wondering why I described the woman as 'naked,' it's because they were covered in body paint and the nipples blurred out in such a way that their breast look like prosthetic breasts Marilyn Manson used for the album cover of Mechanical Animals.

New Slipknot - The negative one

After a slew of teaser videos from Slipknot, we finally get the first opportunity to hear some new material. The negative one can be streamed over at the band's website, with the video set to unlock on 5 August.

From The negative one it sounds like Slipknot have picked up from where they left off after the All Hope is Gone sessions, despite losing founding member Paul Grey, and the recent departure of Joey Jordison. After the announcement of Jordison's departure, many people began to write the band off. Fortunately, Slipknot seems to have found a more than capable replacement; if you didn't know better, you probably wouldn't even realise it wasn't Jordison drumming.

I'm intrigued to hear the rest of the album. I'm especially interested to know if the new drummer continued to emulate Jordison's playing style for the recording of the entire album, or if they brought something new to the mix. As yet, the new drummer has not been named, but I suspect Shawn 'Clown' Crahan has taken of the role, while various others have also been rumoured to have filled the position.

Arcade Fire releases new single, 'Reflektor'

After being teased by Arcade Fire the last few days with a clock on their webpage counting down to 9 p.m. last night, something finally happened. As I'd speculated, last night saw the release of some new music of the band's next album, Refelktor, in the form of a video for the title track.

The song in a near 8 minute epic, featuring the band donning massive head masks, reminiscent of those worn by Slipknot for their 'Purgatory' photo shoot prior to the release of all All Hope is Gone. It's all gets pretty weird, since the word 'nine' is scrawled on the back of the truck, which also made me think of Slipknot. Guess it wont be too often that comparisons between these two seemingly disparate bands will be drawn upon.

The song itself features lyrics sung in French, and a has a very catchy, danceable beat. This perceived deviation in sound has caused some stir among fans, who preferred the bands previously more rock-orientated beats.

The video also features the band members dancing around a coffin adorned with mirror fragments and CDs, which is later shown to be filled with plastic dolls, which adds to the malevolence of the masks. Is this intended to be a reference to the format's impending death, or just commercial 'pop' music in general?

Scar the Martyr's new single will disintegrate your soul

Joey Jordison's side-project Scar the Martyr have released the second single off their eponymous album. The track is called Soul disintegration, and it sounds like the most promising release of recent months. Turn up your speakers and play the track as loudly as you can!

Scar the Martyr's first single, 'Blood host'

Here's a chance to listen to Scar the Martyr's first single, Blood host taken of the groups full-length album scheduled for release on 1 October.

Scar the Martyr members from left to right: Jed Simon (Strapping Young Lad), Kris Norris (Darkest Hour), Henry Derek, Kyle Konkiel (World Under Blood), & Joey Jordison (Slipknot, Murderdolls).

New side-project from Slipknot's drummer

Joey Jordison (Slipknot, Murderdolls, Roadrunner United) has been dropping  hints of his involvement in a new musical endeavour for quite some time now. The project's name was revelaed to be Scar the Martyr on Wednesday.

Apart from a list of conributers, and few images taken in the studio, not a whole lot of detail is known of the project. So far the following artists have been named on the band's Facebook page; Henry Derek, Chris Vrenna (Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Tweaker), Jed Simon (Strapping Young Lad), and Kris Norris (Darkest Hour). 

Derek is a complete unknown to me, and I'm interested to hear his vocals, as well as some of the bands demos, in order to get an idea of the groups musical direction.