Murderdolls allow Slipknot’s drummer to de-mask

If you are a ‘maggot’ then your loyalty to Slipknot will be severely tested over the next ten days: two members of the band are coming out with side-projects within a week of each other. First on the agenda are Joey Jordison’s Murderdolls and their debut ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’, but it is going to be Corey Taylor’s (with Jim Root on guitar) StoneSour that will do more to polarise the fans.

‘StoneSour’ is, in shorthand, a combination of hard-rocking and grunge with a few grand power-ballads; Corey has described it as “Metallica meets Alice In Chains” and you’ll be able to read a Taylor interview next week (so please, feel obliged to re-log on Thursday, the 22nd inst). For the difference from StoneSour, who actually existed at the time they ‘revisit’, his drumming bandmate has gone a little bit further into the past to find his outta-‘Knot expression.

Jordison has ditched the skins-position and done Dave Grohl; well, almost – he’s playing a guitar with singing delegated to Wednesday 13 (originally recruited as a bassist). Murderdolls is actually a sonic offspring of JJ and Static-X guitarist Tripp Eisen, who hooked up at the OzzFest in 1999, although the band’s roots hark back to The Rejects over seven years ago and the transformation is… rather curious.

Murderdolls are ‘dirty’, punked-up, glam-rockers who like to flirt with Goth; it is raw and brisk rocking that simply blitzes its way out of the speakers. ‘Beyond the Valley…’ is a fun, fun, fun record, the New York Dolls would be pleased with. The band’s lyrical currency mainly bypasses reality by being inspired with horror flicks, which in itself has a comic effect built in it. This ain’t jokey but it is neither a deep comment on the U-th’s issues and social ills, as titles such as ‘Love At First Fright’, ‘Grave Robbing USA’, ‘197666’, ‘Dressed To Depress’, aptly demonstrate.

But, there is plenty here to keep an open-minded rocker moshing happily at a steel-solid pace: ‘Slit My Wrist’, ‘She Was A Teenage Zombie’, ‘B-Movie Scream Queen’ with ‘People Hate Me’ the only one slowing down to be, possibly, the primest cut on the disc. Murderdolls’ is a simple unmasking and apparently pressure-less joy for Joey, while Taylor’s outfit will be dissected for signs of frustration and dissention.

Asked about Murderdolls, Corey ‘diplomatically’ answered that he preferred The Rejects. A sliver of advice is not to get hung up on Slipknot and comparisons. This is entertainment, a party album, a pogo-tribe happy around its own gravestone.

7/10

Tour dates:

09 September – G2, Glasgow
10 September – University, Birmingham
11 September – Little Academy, Manchester
12 September – Fleece & Firkin, Bristol
13 September – Garage, London