By: Anders

Posted: Sep 21, 2006

The "other" band of Slipknot's singer Corey Taylor, and even if he likes it or not, that is how Stone Sour gets marketed and of course that fact will shift a handful of copies or more. Though Stone Sour has not the slightest thing to do with the style or approach Slipknot has to music or anything else. Stone Sour is about atmospheric hard rock with a few metallic inspirations here and there and a lot of aggressions spread around.

The music shifts alot between hard rock and more metallic elements, take for instance the opener '30/30 - 150' which at times sound as newer Metallica era "St. Anger" and then the closer 'zzyzx Road' which is a quiet rock-ballad, if you add the rest of the numbers together and divide them, you'll get all in between the 2 songs just mentioned. The song writing is quite good, the band know where they have to hit the nail, to get effective and driving songs. There are good catchy hooks in almost each song and good sing-a-long choruses in almost every song as well, a bullet-proof recipe, which works more or less each time, it might not produce the most exciting music, but it does produce something listenable.

Musically there isn't that much to come after on this album, the performances are solid and builds up a good base for Taylor's vocals. There are some good guitars here and there, just take the solo in the title track. The rhythm section is bone-solid and delivers some good and driving rhythms, great patterns and acts like the perfect backbone for icing on the cake, the vocals as I've already mentioned. The vocals are actually very good, Corey Taylor sings well, a good rough rock n' rollish vocal most of the way, a lot of passion and energy is put in the performance and that adds atmosphere and sympathy. The more 'soft' hardcore type of vocals he utilizes once in a while are also decent, but not as good as his "real" singing. On the more ballad-like tracks he adds a great and fitting fragile touch, which makes it all seem very personal.

An angst driven album offering the current trends of metal and rock, could be a way to describe this album, not a fulfilling description, but still quite fitting. Stone Sour does of course offer more, as you can read above, but the album is driven on dark atmospheres and energy. A quite enjoyable album without it goes into the history as something grand. This album will have its 3 hits and then slide into oblivion within 5 years and then get revitalized in 10 years.

Rating: 6/10

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