.5: The Gray Chapter
.5: The Gray Chapter is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Slipknot,[3] released on October 17, 2014, by Roadrunner Records.[4] It was the first studio album by the band in six years and the first not to feature original founding members bassist Paul Gray and drummer Joey Jordison due to the death of Gray in 2010 (the title of the album being a reference to his surname), and Jordison being fired from the band in late 2013, as well as the only Slipknot album to feature original guitarist Donnie Steele on bass, although the tracks he played on are unknown, and the first Slipknot album to have Alessandro Venturella on bass and Jay Weinberg on drums.[3] The album includes six singles and has received commercial success and acclaiming reviews. A standard and deluxe edition of the album was released. It is also the band's final studio album to feature their longtime percussionist Chris Fehn before his dismissal from the band due to a lawsuit in March 2019.
.5: The Gray Chapter
"The Negative One" received a nomination for Best Metal Performance at the 57th annual Grammy Awards.[5] The album was nominated for Best Rock Album the following year, along with a Best Metal Performance nomination for the song "Custer".[6]
Promotion and tour[edit]
On July 15, the band began releasing short teasers for the new album for over a two-week period that turned out to be clips from the official video along with samples from a song entitled "The Negative One".[14][15] The song was released on August 1, 2014, and an accompanying video was released on August 5, 2014. It was directed by Shawn Crahan; however, it did not feature any of the band members.[16]
On August 13, 2014, the band revealed the cover art for their official radio single entitled "The Devil in I",[17] and the single premiered on August 24, 2014.[18] The official video for the single was unveiled on September 12 featuring the members with new variations of their masks with the exception of Taylor who debuted a new mask and the new bassist and drummer's masks which were very similar.[10]
Slipknot began their world tour at the second iteration of Knotfest as headliners on October 25 and the 26 with Anthrax, Five Finger Death Punch, Otep and Black Label Society among others in California.[19] A co-headline North American and European tour with Korn dubbed the Prepare for Hell tour commenced afterwards with King 810 in support.[20][21] Slipknot and Korn embarked on the British leg of the Prepare For Hell tour in January 2015.[22] In addition to the standard edition, a deluxe edition featuring two listed and three unlisted bonus tracks, and a special edition featuring a T-shirt of the album cover have also been released.[23]
Commercial performance[edit]
.5: The Gray Chapter landed in the number one spot in Australia on the ARIA Albums Chart with 14,188 first week sales.[49][50] It was Slipknot's second album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart by selling 132,000 copies in its first week.[51] The album also debuted at number one in Japan, Canada, Russia and Switzerland. It had top 5 debuts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, Mexico, Denmark and Finland.