Slipknot - All Hope Is Gone (2LP) - Orange Vinyl

Slipknot’s fourth record landed in 2008 like a steel-toed boot, and time has only sharpened its bite. All Hope Is Gone marked a real pivot point for the Iowans, recorded at Sound Farm Studio in Jamaica, Iowa with producer Dave Fortman, and it carries the hum of a band making noise in their own backyard. It became their first US Billboard 200 number one, which felt like a wild vindication for a group that had built an empire on blastbeats, bleak poetry, and a nine-headed stage show that still baffles security teams worldwide.

The push and pull inside these songs is the story. On one side you get the sledgehammer stuff, tight and mean. Gematria (The Killing Name) is frantic and precise, like a machine learning to breathe. The title track races to the finish with a nastiness that harks back to the Iowa era, Joey Jordison snapping the kit into shape while Mick Thomson and Jim Root carve riffs that feel cut from sheet metal. On the other side you’ve got curveballs and slow burns. Psychosocial strides in with a chant that even non-fans can bark, and its chorus still feels designed for muddy festival fields. Dead Memories slides into radio-friendly territory without sanding off the edges, and Sulfur threads a surprisingly elegant lead line through its churn. Snuff is the tender outlier, a ballad that Corey Taylor has called one of the most personal things he has sung, and it has grown into a fan favourite for good reason.

The accolades tell part of the tale. Psychosocial earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, and Sulfur picked up the same nod a year later. That recognition came during a period when the band were stretching their shape. You can hear it in Gehenna, which feels like a fever dream in slow motion, and in Butcher’s Hook, a gnarly mid-tempo stomper that snarls instead of sprints. The sequencing leans into variety, but it never loses the Slipknot signature, that mix of precision and chaos that turns on a dime.

All Hope Is Gone also carries a heavy weight in the band’s history. It is the final Slipknot album to feature bassist Paul Gray, who died in 2010, and the last with drummer Joey Jordison before his departure years later. Listening back, you notice how much their personalities anchor the record. Gray’s bass locks with Jordison’s kick patterns in a way that lets the percussionists swing their chains around the beat, and the whole thing breathes with an elastic, human lurch. Shawn Crahan and Chris Fehn give the songs extra lungs, while Craig Jones’ textures keep the corners eerie. It is a full nine-piece argument pressed into 57 minutes.

The production is cleaner than the scrape of Iowa and darker than the gleam of Vol. 3. Fortman gives space to Taylor’s vocal melodies without doling out too much polish, so those choruses hit but the guitars still rake the paint. When Sulfur opens up, you can hear the room. When the title track piles on, it never turns to mush. It is a tricky balance, especially with this much information flying around, and the album holds it together with stubborn focus.

If you caught them around this era, you will remember the way Psychosocial lit up crowds, or how Snuff could hush a sea of black shirts. The record divided some critics at the time, with praise for the ambition and the singles, and grumbles about unevenness. That feels part of its charm now. It is a snapshot of a band refusing to calcify, even as the machine around them got bigger and the stakes higher.

For collectors, All Hope Is Gone vinyl has become a staple. It is the sort of title you spot on the wall at a Melbourne record store, then take home and spin through the whole way, no skips. The low-end punch and the stereo swirl on Gehenna reward a proper system, and Psychosocial’s chug has that satisfying air in the grooves. If you chase Slipknot vinyl, or you want to buy Slipknot records online, this one sits neatly next to the bruisers and the curveballs in the catalogue. Slipknot albums on vinyl tend to move fast, especially the early runs, so keep an eye out in the usual spots for vinyl records Australia and beyond.

Fifteen years on, the verdict is simple. This is a band at full tilt, arguing with itself in productive ways, pulling heavy music into the mainstream without letting it go soft. All Hope Is Gone still feels dangerous, still feels lived in, and it earns its place on the shelf every time the needle drops.