Artist: Stone Sour
Album: “House of Gold and Bones Part 1”
Genre: Alt-metal, hard rock
Review by Shawn
Based on Corey Taylor’s fictional tale of a man faced with the choice of growing up or sheltering in the irresponsibility of youth, ‘House Of Gold & Bones Part 1’ finds Stone Sour thriving like never before.
This is fourth Stone Sour album was described by frontman Corey Taylor; during it’s recording, as “a cross between Pink Floyds’The Wall and Alice in Chains’ Dirt”.
Grammy-nominated musician and best-selling author Corey Taylor, the lyricist and lead singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour, is setting down the microphone and putting ink and images to paper in his new project with Dark Horse Comics—House of Gold & Bones!
House of Gold & Bones is a unique multimedia experience which includes two Stone Sour albums (release date for Part 1 is October 22, with Part 2 following in 2013), videos, online presence, creative album packaging, live shows, and now the Dark Horse Comics series. Each element will follow and expand on the story. Taylor, already an internationally best-selling author, courtesy of last year’s Seven Deadly Sins, wrote the story—as well as the lyrics for the twenty-three tracks that make up the two albums—as a linear story line. The Stone Sour songs set the tone and follow the action, with Taylor’s House of Gold & Bones comic expanding on the story.
The mixture of tracks is particularly laudable. There are plenty of riled, aggressive anthems designed to raise the roof and get a crowd going, but there are a surprising number of more heartfelt, even intimate tracks here. They contrast with the energetic grandeur of the solos and offer a more human series of moments to counteract the will and domination of the heavier songs. Leading the fray, Corey Taylor’s vocals are as sharp and precise just as is the band’s music. He has the power to enliven a faster track, instill disorder and malice in the surging guitars, and yet possesses a kind of broken frailty that brings real pathos to the slower moments. Best of all, House of Gold and Bones seems to be a grower, with repeated listening doing much to unveil its hidden glories.
While we’re Stone Sour have provided the story of a character’s personal voyage and their inner dialogue that works as one album-length idea, and in that aspect they have definitely succeeded and left us anxious to see where the story continues in ‘House of Gold & Bones Part 2.’
Tracklist:
1. Gone Sovereign
2. Absolute Zero
3. A Rumor of Skin
4. The Travelers – Part 1
5. Tired
6. RU486
7. My Name Is Allen
8. Taciturn
9. Influence of a Drowsy God
10. The Travelers – Part 2
11. Last of the Real
