10 Greatest Rock Music Guitar Solos Of The 2010s
8. Nomadic - Slipknot
Slipknot are a band known for many things; scary masks; shouty singing; frightening the pants off of conservative American parents in the early 2000s…
What they are not known for, however, is guitar solos.
Shredding doesn’t really fit their style. They’re more about hefty riffs and disorientating percussion sounds than getting gnarly, but that’s not to say they can’t pull this off when they want to.
Case in point: Nomadic from the 2014 album .5: The Gray Chapter.
The ninth song on this monster 17-track album sounds like standard Slipknot fare until around the three-minute mark, when guitarist Jim Root is invited to go nuts. Root goes to town on his guitar, soloing with such ferocity it's a wonder his fingers didn’t catch fire. There’s nothing subtle or subversive going on here - this is show-offy guitar playing at its pompous best.
Whilst a solo like this might have been lost in the mix for any other band, the fact that Slipknot don’t do this sort of thing all the time helps it to stand out.
It’s nice to see them let loose every once in a while.