Slipknot guitarist Jim Root often threatens to leak long-delayed album Look Outside Your Window

Jim Root and Shawn Crahan of Slipknot onstage in 2024 — (Image credit: Paul Bergen/Redferns)

Slipknot guitarist Jim Root has joined the chorus of people impatient for the band to release Look Outside Your Window.

Percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan announced six years ago that, during the sessions for 2008’s All Hope Is Gone, several of the nu metal nine-piece’s members recorded another album on the side. In interviews since, he’s repeatedly offered up release windows that came and went without anything happening, causing some fatigue among fans.

In the new issue of Metal Hammer, Root reveals that he too is sick of waiting – to the point he’s threatened multiple times to just leak the thing and have it over with.

Metal Hammer 395 — (Image credit: Future)

“Man, I keep telling Clown that I’m just gonna throw it up on Youtube, then put a link to it on my Instagram or something,” the guitarist tells writer Paul Brannigan. “He’s like, ‘Don’t dude, just don’t.’”

Root adds that Crahan is still “messing with mixes” for the long-delayed album, then wonders, “Maybe he’s losing focus on it or whatever.”

“I don’t even remember what any of that stuff sounds like, because it’s been so long since we recorded it,” he admits. “I don’t think I’ve listened to it in probably 10 years. Maybe I’ll go find him after we are done talking, and I’ll be like, ‘Let’s listen to Look Outside Your Window, and let’s release it tonight…’”

Look Outside Your Window was recorded simultaneously to All Hope Is Gone at Sound Farm Studio in Slipknot’s home state of Iowa. Root, Crahan, singer Corey Taylor and turntablist Sid Wilson contributed to the record, which Taylor has previously described as having a “Radiohead vibe” that’s “experimental” and “melodic”.

Initially, Crahan aimed for the album to come out during the cycle for 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind. However, said cycle ended with the release of followup The End, So Far in 2022. In December 2023, he said it’s been fully mixed and mastered, with album artwork, and would come out in 2024. It didn’t.

Although Look Outside Your Window has become the biggest nu metal white whale since Limp Bizkit’s Stampede Of The Disco Elephants, one song from it has seen the light of day. ’Til We Die was released as part of the deluxe edition of All Hope Is Gone and is frequently played from the tape at the end of Slipknot concerts.

As well as the interview with Slipknot, the new issue of Metal Hammer offers the essential breakdown of the year in metal. The magazine ranks the best metal albums of 2024, revisits Lzzy Hale’s stint fronting glam metal stars Skid Row, gets the inside story of Gojira’s show-stealing Olympic Games performance, and so much more. Order now and get your copy delivered directly to your doorstep.

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Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.