Your weekend is about to get a lot heavier, courtesy of Slipknot.
Following a tease earlier this week, the masked metallers have announced that they’ll be releasing a new song called “The Chapeltown Rag” this Friday, November 5. They’ll also be debuting it live during their headlining set at Knotfest Los Angeles tomorrow.
Speaking with Knotfest.com, frontman Corey Taylor describes “The Chapeltown Rag” as “frenetic,” a “punisher” and “classic Slipknot.”
“Lyrically, it’s coming from a point of talking about the various manipulations that can happen when social media meets media itself,” Taylor explains. “And the different ways that these manipulations can try to pull us in different directions, in the fact that we’re all becoming addicts to it, which is very, very dangerous.”
The title “The Chapeltown Rag” references the English town victimized by serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka the “Yorkshire Ripper,” in the 1970s. Taylor came up with the title after watching a Netflix documentary about Sutcliffe, after which the streaming service kept suggesting he should watch more serial killer docs.
“At that moment, everything was just kind of steering towards violence, or a history of violence,” Taylor says. “And it was just such a weird echo of social media. And the fact that social media tries to steer you towards violence or steer you towards the most toxic thing — the most toxic moment. So I looked at it from that standpoint.”
“The Chapeltown Rag” is the first new Slipknot song to follow the band’s 2019 album, We Are Not Your Kind.
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