When you’ve reached a status where fans hang on to every word you say, worship every song you sing and back every project you undertake, anything you release is a sure bet in selling by the bucket load. Corey Taylor and his immeasurable success has hit those heights, having now been a certifiable icon of the metal world for a generation.
The fear with Taylor and his band Stone Sour’s sixth album ‘Hydrograd’ is that without the pressure of great sales (because it’s a certain anyway) will they challenge themselves and produce the high quality metal stompers that they’re known for, or will they take it easy and lazily create an album full of generic rock fillers without any substance, like they claim their new enemies Nickelback do. Luckily, for the most part, their latest album goes the way of the former.
Taking a different route than they’ve ever done before straight from the off, opener ‘YSIM’ is a thunderous instrumental number, leading into the euphoric ‘Tapei Person / Allah Tea’ that show how much of an unstoppable unit the band are together and how far their musicianship has come. ‘Fabuless’ and ‘Whiplash Pants’ both blast you with their unforgiving metal assault (Roy Mayorga really does have endless energy on the drums) which reminds you why they are considered a world class metal band.
‘Song #3’ (despite being fifth on the tracklist, a killer for the OCD) is the first time on the album where they sound like classic Stone Sour at their best, with a chorus that will be perfect for the festival circuit. Newbie Christian Martucci proves he deserves his new place on lead guitar with jaw dropping solos and and headbang-in-your-living -room worthy riffs, on this track and throughout the record.
Unlike his Slipknot day job, Taylor’s voice is less barbaric (in the best sense possible), showing off his sensitive side a little more as well as bursts of hellish vocals when he needs to. It even sounds like he’s kept his mask on for the demonic ‘Friday Knights’ and ‘Somebody Stole My Eyes’. Having one of the most recognisable voices in metal certainly helps an aging body, and he works the songs vocally to his advantage so he doesn’t have to strain himself too far. On tracks like ‘Mercy’ and ‘When The Fever Broke’ he still goes the extra mile and pulls off the powerful big notes when he needs to.
‘St Marie’ is the token Stone Sour ballad. Unfortunately, the acoustic track in no way matches the emotional depth of the likes of ‘Bother’ or ‘Through Glass’. With a massive country influence, the bizarre love song would have been better left in the studio until Taylor finally decides to go for (a long threatened) solo album. This is a route Stone Sour don’t need to go down.
At just over an hour long, ‘Hydrograd’ can feel like an overbearing listen and tracks like ‘Knievel Has Landed’ are well below their high standard. If they had cut the fat and just focused on quality, this could have headed to album of the year territory.
Stone Sour could have thrown it in on ‘Hydrograd’ but clearly that has never been on Corey Taylor’s agenda. Not all of his experiments are great but there’s one thing that him and the rest of the band are the best at: producing crushing metal anthems with a layer of sensitivity. ‘Hyrdrograd’ is the perfect example, firmly cementing Stone Sour as the band that guarantee to put in 100% every time. Eat your heart out, Chad Kroeger.
LOUIS KERRY