10 Perfect Rock Albums That Are Incredibly Sad

Every single one of Slipknot's albums have been about capturing the primal energy of metal music. From all the way back on their nu metal tinged debut, you can hear a much more animalistic quality behind every single song, as if they are using their masks to tap into that inner demon inside of them that's begging to be let out. As much as they may hammer things out on themselves though, this band was a brotherhood, and their fifth outing saw them losing one of their own.

After parting ways with drummer Joey Jordison, the entire band was dealt a heavy blow with the passing of their bass player Paul Gray, who was pivotal in writing some of their classic riffs back in the day. There were a few months where the band lay in limbo, until they finally came together to dedicate their next album to Paul's memory. From the first few moments of this record, you can really feel the grief that they're going through, as an bagpipe funeral dirge opens things up and Corey Taylor invites you to walk with him through the darkest depths of the band's back pages.

Even with some of the more accessible tracks on the record like the Devil in I or Killpop, the centerpiece of the whole record revolves around the anger, sadness, and eventual acceptance of continuing on without one of your brothers beside you on stage. The Knot would live to raise hell onstage for years afterward, but the world will never know how hard it was to leave Paul behind.