Stone Sour – The House of Gold and Bones Part1

My favorite part about Stone Sour is you get the same anger emotion that you do from Slipknot but you get it in a much tighter and melodic hard rock package. Over the years, and specifically with the last two albums, Stone Sour has really cemented and discovered the sound that they are going for and they are able to mix many, many different styles into one album. 2010′s “Audio Secrecy” was the first actual album that I liked from the band and it made me go back and listen to some older stuff. It still didn’t do anything for me. “The House of Gold and Bones Part 1“, part of a two part series, is a continuation on the growth of the band and sound.

It’s pretty safe to say for me that the two of the three heaviest and best songs on the album are the dual opening tracks and lead single “Gone Sovereign” and ”Absolute Zero”. If you’ve heard them on the web or radio then if you are like me you probably can’t help but nodding your head to how catchy they are. Being in Stone Sour really brings out the best of vocalist Corey Taylor. His clean vocals are some of the best in metal(don’t believe me? Check out this article) and he continues to get better and better. Being in Stone Sour also brings out the best in guitarist Jim Root. He has room to display his rhythm skills and actually play riffs that make sense and aren’t just fast for the sake of being fast.

Melodic songs like “A Rumor of Skin” and “Influence of a Drowsy God” carry on the album, all be it slowly. Not as slow as the horrible slow songs as “The Travelers PT. 1″ and “Taciturn” . They just, they just slow the album down to a crawl and kill any and all momentum that the band had built. Although their is one song that may be the best Stone Sour song yet and that is “RU486“. It really does sound like it could be the best song Slipknot had ever written if it was on one of their albums. It channels the energy and sound of some thrash metal mixed with a fantastic grunge sound. Musically the song is hard, fast paced, and just pounding from start to finish. Then you have “Tired” ,which, I feel like I like it because of the novelty. But Taylor ends most lines in the verses with ‘here’ but he does it in such a way that it works. Anger and emotion, melody and sadness all shine through in this song.

All-in-all the album has some of the best songs the band has written and a few that I think just slow the album down. As I thought about it and realized that it all tells a larger story and I can’t expect the slow songs to really be fantastic on their own I came to enjoy it. The album is solid; a lot of hard rock fans are going to LOVE IT while a few metal fans are probably going to get into it. Slipknot fans, might like moments on it if nothing else.

Rating: 7/10