Slipknot recorded two albums in 2008 – All Hope Is Gone, which has been out for years, and Look Outside Your Window, which remains unreleased. Look Outside Your Window features vocalist Corey Taylor, guitarist Jim Root, percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan, and DJ Sid Wilson, and has been described as a massive departure from the band's usually-aggressive sound.
Look Outside Your Window was originally supposed to be surprise released on Christmas Day 2019, and currently has a potential release date of April 2023. Though if it was up to Taylor, Look Outside Your Window would never see the light of day.
In an interview with NME, Taylor reasons that the expectations for Look Outside Your Window is too high at this point and might be better left to the imagination. Which is solid reasoning – it'd be like if Necrophagist finally released their new album. No matter how good it is, there'll be a contingent of people crying "we waited this long for this?" As if the longer you wait, the music somehow gets more magical.
"Look Outside Your Window is Clown's baby. Slipknot is Clown's baby. I punch a clock and then I punch out. It's so funny, every year or two I get an email about Look Outside Your Window and how it's coming out. I'm just as stoked as everybody else because dude, I don't even have a copy. I have a version from 10 years ago that I don't even think is the same mix that they're dealing with. I don't even fucking know the songs are going on this album, that's how out of the loop I am."
"I was a guest star on that album anyway, so your guess is as good as mine. It's so fascinating that something that started as a demo has become the Holy Grail. If you only knew how that album came about and the pain it caused… I hope people dig it but I honestly hope it never gets released because there are so many expectations about it now. It's like that Wu Tang Clan album that only whatisfuck [Martin Shkreli] has a copy of. It's almost better to just wonder."
In a 2019 interview with NME, Clown elaborated on the record and its release, saying it'll come out when it comes out. As you'll notice in Clown's comments below, we've been promised Look Outside Your Window multiple times in the past and it hasn't surfaced. So… here's hoping, right?
"Look Outside Your Window is a very unique art piece on its own. So it's sort of timeless, in my opinion. And so I try not to worry about it too much. It feels like I've waited for this long for it to be right, and it just never has… Like, we were gonna release it way early on this cycle, but this takes precedence, and that's not supposed to be confused.
"It's just a piece of the puzzle. It's not supposed to be watered down or marketed, really. It's really a piece of the imagination that's missing that people might really need. So, hopefully on this cycle somewhere. It was scheduled for Christmas.
"I just quit asking, because I don't want it to interfere with this. And mainly because of what it is. It needs its own space. And we are having a good time enjoying this album, and we have no ego with that. We're not trying to make that corporate or whatever; it's really just beautiful art that we wanna share in the right way.
"So it's gonna be on this album cycle at some point. And like everything we're doing right now, it's just gonna come out, and people won't even know. It'll just be this thing that happens. I'm looking forward to that, though. I think people will really enjoy it."
