It’s 5.30am on Record Store Day 2026 (April 18) when NME joins the lengthy queue at Crash Records in Leeds. It’s the only way to hear ‘Look Outside Your Window’, the forgotten album from four of Slipknot’s nine members: Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan, Jim Root, Corey Taylor and Sid Wilson. In 2019, Clown revealed the existence of the “experimental, psychedelic” outtakes that the four recorded in their home state of Iowa, around sessions for the metal legends’ fourth LP, 2008’s ‘All Hope Is Gone’.
After years of badgering from fans and NME alike, it has finally arrived, albeit as a Record Store Day exclusive limited to 2,300 vinyl copies worldwide. With no digital release currently planned, it’s refreshing to see a band of Slipknot’s size part with convention. Self-titling ‘Look Outside Your Window’ also demonstrates that Slipknot bandleader Clown, this album’s chief architect, wants to draw lines between the two.
The album comes with some expectations, notably the “Radiohead vibe”. Perhaps tracks like 2019’s nauseous ‘My Pain’ or 2022’s cinematic ‘Adderall’ could indicate what falls into that category, on paper. Last week, Clown opened up on the “trying times” within the ’Knot that informed the record’s mood, and its guests, namely the natural sounds of crickets, toads and another human: Cristina Scabbia, vocalist of Italian gothic metallers Lacuna Coil.
Haunting prologue ‘11th March’ paints the picture in our barren dark fantasy as Clown’s percussion stomps through the stillness that’s cut apart by a fuzzed-up riff. ‘Moth’ feels like the proper curtain-raiser; flashes of disgruntled, downtuned guitars interrupt its sprawling tones. For the first time, Taylor yells (“I’m gonna walk away”), albeit more of a croaky, wavering howl than his trademark scream. Throughout, his first-person lyrics are strikingly bleak: “Make me feel alone / make me less than whole”.
‘Dirge’ shines in moments of floaty, U2-esque reverb that are later decorated with glissandos and a chainsaw of distressing noise, as Slipknot’s DNA forces its way in. Scabbia recites a morbid poem about the past, present and future in Italian on ‘Christina’ and wails all over the slow-burn nu-metal of ‘Is Real’, which concludes with mountain-sized urgency. It sure sounds like Slipknot, only that every ‘traditional’ element emerges repurposed, playing its part within this untidy but miraculously consistent sense of ambience.
But Side-B definitively differentiates ‘Look Outside Your Window’ from Slipknot. Taylor’s unmistakably emphatic vocal delivery peaks on the heart-wrenching ‘Away’, only denied the title of ballad by its wispy Chilli Peppers-style rhythm section. ‘Toad’ takes that crown, using the unhurried strum of the acoustic to find the strength to “tell an old friend goodbye”. ‘Juliette’ could be a reference to Taylor’s divorce in 2007 (“Hey there Mr Blue Eyes / have you found your way back yet? / have you found your Juliette?”), but all bets are off for his mumble on confusing closer ‘U Can’t Stop This’ – a phrase taken from the muscular ‘In Reverse’.
We always knew ‘Look Outside Your Window’ was going to be experimental. It’s Taylor’s desolate voice, over the knee-jerk intersection of heaviness and atmosphere, that fills it with the Slipknot fear factor, something normally summoned through masks and unrelenting brutality. ‘Look Outside Your Window’ wouldn’t exist without The Nine, and its unanswered mystery can finally be resolved, confirmed in their story as a seriously impressive cult classic.
