Corey Taylor Finds The Sweet Spot Between Stone Sour & Slipknot On 'Post Traumatic Blues'

The second single from Corey Taylor’s upcoming solo album, CMF2, has just dropped, and it’s a doozy.

It’s not often that the Grammy-winning vocalist manages to find the sweet spot between the two bands he sings/screams in, Stone Sour and Slipknot - it has to be challenging to maintain the hard rock sensibilities of the former with the chaotic metal vibe of the masked outfit, but he seems to have finally nailed it on Post Traumatic Blues.

Taylor’s crushing screamed vocals are complemented by clean guitar riffs and solos as his singing comes into the forefront during the chorus. The second verse contains a filthy bass line, courtesy of Eliot Lorango, as Taylor demands, “Who’s afraid of a king in a castle? Another dirty face on a $100 bill”.

“Post Traumatic Blues is my attempt to describe for people what it’s like to deal with PTSD,” Taylor said in a statement. “Sometimes it’s so hard for people to understand the ups and downs, the severity of the cold and numbness, that I wanted to try and build a bridge lyrically between the ones living with the disease and the ones who are trying to help them.”

You can watch the animated music video that intersperses real-life footage below.

In May, Taylor released the first single from CMF2, Beyond, with a circus show-inspired music video.

Unlike Post Traumatic Blues, Beyond definitely doesn’t sound like a Slipknot song, or even a Stone Sour song, for that matter. It’s a fresh solo outing from the Duality singer that finds him exploring the raw rasp in his voice and testing new melodic waters.

“I originally wrote it as an aggressive romantic song, but I'm also looking at it now as a kind of ‘come together’ song,” Taylor explained. “Bringing the masses together and letting them know that I want my music to take them beyond what they may think about me.

“Maybe they’ve had a misconception about me. It’s not exactly a calling card, more like throwing the bat signal up and being ‘alright, let's turn everything on its head.’ It’s almost a dual threat because now I look at it from two standpoints.”

CMF2 follows Taylor’s 2020 debut solo album, CMFT, which peaked at #8 in Australia. “My first solo album was kind of where I was coming from. This album is more where we're going,” Taylor said.

CMF2 is Taylor’s first album to be released through BMG and the first on his own label imprint, Decibel Cooper Recordings. You can pre-order CMF2 here before it drops on Friday, 15 September.