The track is the first taste of the band’s upcoming eighth album with producer Matt Wallace
Slipknot are back with a brand new song called “Arsenal.” It is the first taste of their upcoming eighth album with producer Matt Wallace. Stream the official music video below now.
The new track opens a significant next chapter for the Iowa metal giants, arriving as the band continues work on what is expected to become its eighth studio album. Released on September 9, 2026, “Arsenal” is Slipknot’s first newly released song featuring drummer Eloy Casagrande, who joined the group in 2024, and also arrives following the departures of longtime members Craig Jones and, more recently, Sid Wilson. The ferocious track wastes little time establishing its intent, opening with the spoken phrase “I hope no bad people show up” before exploding into a frantic assault driven by Casagrande’s drumming, the band’s dense guitar attack and Corey Taylor repeatedly roaring, “Let’s go.” The song eventually drops into a slower breakdown before rebuilding toward its punishing conclusion. “Arsenal” was released alongside a music video directed by percussionist and founding member M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan and featuring actor Jackson White. The credits identify the clip as an (sic)est Films production in association with (sic)est Records, another indication of the greater independence Slipknot now possesses following the completion of its longtime Roadrunner Records contract.
Although Slipknot has not yet officially confirmed that “Arsenal” will appear on the eighth album, the single arrives while substantial work on the follow-up to 2022’s The End, So Far is underway. Guitarist Jim Root revealed during a 2026 appearance on the RIDE BYND podcast that the band has been working with veteran producer Matt Wallace, whose résumé includes acclaimed records by Faith No More as well as work with Deftones, The Replacements and Maroon 5. Rather than entering the studio with a collection of completely finished demos, Slipknot has returned to a more communal method of creating music. Root, Casagrande, Michael Pfaff and Crahan have been participating in extended jams, with Crahan identifying promising sections and Wallace helping capture and develop the material. “This new album we’re working on, that’s what we’re doing, we’re just jamming and Clown’s arranging,” Root explained. He said the musicians can jam for as long as two hours and emerge with several potential song ideas, describing the process as “so organic and it’s so real. It’s almost frightening.” The approach is particularly important because the eighth album is expected to be Slipknot’s first full-length studio record with Casagrande behind the kit, giving one of metal’s most technically accomplished drummers an opportunity to help shape the songs from their earliest stages.
The amount of music being generated is considerable. Root said Slipknot has accumulated “probably at least 50” arrangements, while emphasizing that those should not be mistaken for 50 completed songs. The band is instead allowing individual pieces to evolve, shelving them temporarily and then returning to them later—a method Root compared to the developmental process used for 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind. He has sounded especially energized by what he is hearing, saying, “For the first time, I’m listening to some of these arrangements as they’re growing. And this is the closest I’ve heard to the music that I can hear in my head that I can’t get out that I’ve ever been.” Root said that feeling has been “like breathing a new life into wanting to create.” Casagrande appears to be a major catalyst for that renewed energy as well, with Root praising the drummer’s musicianship and explaining that working with him has opened new rhythmic and compositional possibilities for the band.
Working with Wallace has also apparently encouraged Slipknot to push outside familiar boundaries. Root recalled listening back to the developing material with the producer and thinking, “Wow, this is wild. This sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” At the same time, he said there is “a familiarity to it that feels like I’ve been listening to it my whole life,” ultimately describing it simply as “Slipknot music.” That does not mean the record is moving in one easily defined direction. Root has said he is writing some of his fastest grind-picked riffs alongside melodic, heavy and doomy passages, clean interludes and increasingly experimental sections. He even cautiously invoked Pink Floyd as a point of reference for some of the experimentation, while making clear that he was not suggesting Slipknot is attempting to sound like the legendary progressive-rock band. “It’s so organic and so honest and it’s so open to interpretation,” Root explained. “I couldn’t tell you what the direction of this next record is going to be.”
“Arsenal,” therefore, arrives at an intriguing transitional moment in Slipknot’s history. It offers the first tangible taste of the Casagrande era even though the band has not yet said whether the song itself belongs to the Wallace-produced album sessions or will ultimately make the record. Slipknot has also yet to reveal an album title, track listing or release date, so it would be premature to call “Arsenal” the eighth album’s official first single. What is clear is that the band is once again actively creating, with dozens of arrangements under development and a recording process that Root says has restored some of the spontaneity of Slipknot’s earliest years. Coming four years after The End, So Far, “Arsenal” serves as a forceful declaration that despite enormous lineup changes and the end of its longtime record contract, Slipknot is moving forward—and its next album is taking shape from one of the largest and most experimental pools of material the band has assembled in years.