Slipknot’s 2014 comeback did more than bring the band back after six years without a studio album. By December, readers of Total Guitar had voted the main riff from “The Negative One” the year’s best.
Notably, the song from .5: The Gray Chapter beat Slash’s “Withered Delilah,” which finished second. Meanwhile, Mastodon took third with “The Motherload,” ahead of Royal Blood’s “Little Monster” and Steel Panther’s “Gloryhole.”
How did Slipknot’s “The Negative One” win over guitar fans?
Rather than ranking whole albums, the magazine asked readers to choose their favorite riffs of 2014. In other words, Slipknot won for a repeating guitar part, not for the entire record.
Afterward, Total Guitar tied that sound to the loss behind the album. The magazine said, “The return of Iowa’s finest following the passing of founding member Paul Gray was always going to be a raw one.”
Then, it added, “The Gray Chapter certainly lived up to that.” Its verdict continued: “It’s absolutely encapsulated in The Negative One’s riff onslaught – it’s Slipknot at their thrilling best.”
What made The Gray Chapter a different Slipknot comeback?
Previously, bassist Paul Gray died in May 2010, leaving the group without one of its founding members. By the time Slipknot released new music, drummer Joey Jordison had also left the band.
Against that backdrop, “The Negative One” introduced listeners to the group’s first new material since those changes. However, the album did not focus only on anger or a return to older sounds.
Instead, “Skeptic” offered a direct tribute to Gray and his place in the band. Singer Corey Taylor explained, “This is definitely about Paul, absolutely.”
Ultimately, the reader vote captured one part of that return: a guitar hook that connected with fans. Looking back, the result also separates a specific reader poll from a claim that everyone named it the year’s best.
