Stone Sour’s latest release – House of Gold and Bones Part Two is, as is heavily implied by the title the second instalment of the ‘House of Gold and Bones’ double album. Unfortunately it just completes the impression given by Part One that House of Gold and Bones falls into that most common trap for double albums. There’s just too much filler.
Stone Sour include some great songs on both parts of ‘House…’ but there is still no hiding that the entire double album could be condensed to a much more manageable 45 minutes if weaker tracks were cut. Another problem is the nature of Stone Sour’s music. Although ‘Red City’ hints at a more developed side to Stone Sour with haunting piano chords underlying Corey Taylor’s great voice, the overwhelming majority of both CD’s consists of straight-down-the-line hard rock songs. This particular breed of music is understandably hard to reconcile with such an ambitious undertaking as a double album without a few more strings to your bow. Far more breadth of idea’s than Stone Sour demonstrate on ‘House…’ is needed to really pull off a double album.
Despite this, ‘House…’ contains a lot of individually good songs. For long-time fans of the band the double tap of ‘Gone Sovereign’ and ‘Absolute Zero’ that start the first part should rank amongst the best work that they’ve released. Stone Sour have a strong formula of, crunchy riffs coupled with undoubtedly catchy choruses and when they stick to this they can (and do) produce great songs. Unfortunately though, the whole concept of a double album for such a musically confined group was always going to be a tall order, and so it proves with ‘House of Gold and Bones.’
