The album title itself was a quiet memorial: .5: The Gray Chapter points to the surname of Paul Gray, the Slipknot bassist who died in 2010. When the Iowa metal band released this record on 17 October 2014, it was their fifth studio album, their first in six years, and the first made without Paul Gray. The band did not try to hide the wound. They put it in the title and let it shape the music.
Recording without Gray and Jordison
Gray’s death was only half the upheaval. By the end of 2013, founding drummer Joey Jordison had been fired from Slipknot, leaving the group without both Gray and Jordison. The record that became .5: The Gray Chapter was recorded between 1 March and 28 July 2014 at several Los Angeles studios and in guitarist Jim Root’s garage. Producer Greg Fidelman, who had worked with Metallica and System of a Down, helped Slipknot turn that instability into something heavier and more direct.
New faces had to step in, and the band kept one of them a mystery at first. Alessandro Venturella played bass on the album, but fans identified him by the unique tattoos on his arms in the video for the single “The Devil in I.” On drums, Jay Weinberg took over for Jordison. Weinberg is the son of Max Weinberg, the longtime drummer in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
Singles and critical reception
The first single, “The Negative One,” arrived on 1 August 2014 and earned a Grammy nomination for best metal performance the following year. Critics heard a band reaching back to the raw aggression of its early albums, especially Slipknot and Iowa, rather than chasing a softer sound. Many reviewers also praised the way the lyrics honored Paul Gray without turning the album into a eulogy. Rolling Stone was less impressed, but Kerrang! gave the record a perfect score. The album also earned a Grammy nomination for best rock album in 2016, and the single “Custer” was nominated for best metal performance the same year. Revolver gave the record 4.5 out of 5 stars.
When .5: The Gray Chapter landed, the commercial answer was immediate. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 132,000 copies sold in its first week. The album also topped the charts in Australia, Japan, Canada, Russia, and Switzerland. Slipknot had not just survived the loss of Gray and the exit of Jordison; they had turned grief into a number one album.
Knotfest and the Prepare for Hell tour
The tour behind the album began at Knotfest on 25 and 26 October 2014, and Slipknot then took the show on the road with Korn for the Prepare for Hell tour. The stage was a place to prove the new lineup could hold up night after night. Venturella and Weinberg were no longer session players or hidden figures; they were the rhythm section of a band that had rebuilt itself in public. King 810 supported the tour, adding another layer of aggression to the shows. The British leg of Prepare for Hell followed in January 2015.
Twelve years on, .5: The Gray Chapter remains a turning point because it forced Slipknot to answer a brutal question: what happens when the people who built the band are gone. The band answered with their heaviest commercial success and a title that made sure nobody forgot who was missing. The grief was not hidden in the liner notes. It was the name on the cover.
The grief was not hidden in the liner notes. It was the name on the cover.
The record also marked the last studio appearance of percussionist Chris Fehn, who was dismissed from Slipknot in 2019. That makes .5: The Gray Chapter the final document of one era and the first of another. It is an album about loss that became the band’s biggest win, a memorial that became the band’s biggest win.