:: Stone Sour - Audio Secrecy

Stone Sour

With Slipknot on hiatus (indefinitely due to the passing away of bassist Paul Gray), it comes as no surprise to find Stone Sour once again back in action, with the Iowa band returning with their long awaited follow up to 2006’s ‘Come What(ever) May’ in ‘Audio Secrecy’. Despite having already enjoyed considerable success with their first two releases, vocalist Corey Taylor (Who’s also a member of Slipknot) promised a much darker and heavier direction on the band’s third release, which certainly had many hoping for a return to the heavier sound of the band’s debut (2002’s self-titled effort), rather than the more accessible and polished feel of their last release. But for all of Taylor’s promises, it doesn’t take long to realise that while ‘Audio Secrecy’ does have its edgy and darker moments, overall album number three from the band doesn’t stray too far from the band’s established melodic hard rock template of their former release.

The opening title track ‘Audio Secrecy’ is a short instrumental piano piece that’s essentially a precursor for the album’s first official song, and new single from the album ‘Mission Statement’. This song is pretty much the sort of thing you would expect from the band, with the song packed with plenty of hard hitting riffs, some cool lead work from Root during the solo breaks and Taylor’s mix of clean and aggressive vocals which provides the song with equal measures of venom and melodic appeal to appeal to everyone.

After a heavy start to the album, both ‘Digital (Did You Tell)’ and ‘Say You’ll Haunt Me’ sees the band steering things towards more straight forward hard rock territory with the guitars playing back-up to choruses that take the centre stage, while the semi-acoustic ‘Dying’ only adds further diversity to the wide spectrum of sounds the band are willing to show off with their third offering. ‘Let’s Be Honest’ and ‘Unfinished’, although solid enough tracks, seems to lack that certain edge to make them really stand out from the more accessible tracks littered throughout the album, while the ballad ‘Hesitate’ only marginally manages to fare a little better in comparison. After a fairly weak patch around the middle of the album, ‘Audio Secrecy’ is picked up with a string of stronger efforts, which include the downright driven ‘Nylon 6/6’, the melancholy and downbeat ‘Miracles’, the brooding ‘Pieces’, the Slipknot-like ‘The Bitter End’, the haunting acoustic ballad ‘Imperfect’ and the powerful closer ‘Threadbare’.

‘Audio Secrecy’ is a solid third effort from Stone Sour, even if the album is a little bloated and padded out with some fillers around the middle, and the much promised darker and heavier elements largely disguised behind the veneer of huge melodic and catchy choruses. Overall, if you’re a fan of Stone Sour’s earlier efforts, then ‘Audio Secrecy’ is sure to please. Just don’t expect any real radical change of direction this time around.