Stone Sour Finish an Unfinished Song, With Jim Root Back on Guitar
“Full of Empty” began as an instrumental demo during the 2010 Audio Secrecy sessions. It arrives November 20 on the album’s 15th anniversary edition, newly recorded by the album-era lineup.
Stone Sour have finished a song they left behind 16 years ago. “Full of Empty” will appear on Audio Secrecy (15th Anniversary Edition), out November 20 through Rhino. The band announced the set on October 30.
The song started as an instrumental demo during the writing sessions for 2010’s Audio Secrecy. Drummer Roy Mayorga brought the music in. Frontman Corey Taylor liked it at the time, but by the point he got to writing lyrics he was out of ideas for it. The song stayed unfinished.
That changed late last year. Taylor went back into the studio and wrote new lyrics and a new vocal for it. Guitarist Jim Root came back to record new guitar parts, alongside guitarist Josh Rand, who also cut new parts. It is the first Stone Sour recording with Root since his tenure in the band ended in 2013. Root still plays with Taylor in Slipknot.
A band on hiatus, not a reunion
Stone Sour have been on indefinite hiatus since 2020. Nothing in the announcement points to a tour or a new album. What it does offer is one completed song from the old sessions, played by the musicians who made the record.
The original album was recorded in 2010 by Taylor, Root, Rand, bassist Shawn Economaki and Mayorga, with producer Nick Raskulinecz at Blackbird Studios in Nashville. It debuted at No. 6 in the United States and reached the Top 10 in nine countries. Its singles included “Say You’ll Haunt Me,” which reached No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, plus “Hesitate” and “Digital (Did You Tell).”
The anniversary edition comes as a three-CD set and on two-LP vinyl, with a clear smoke vinyl version sold only through the band’s webstore. Digital and streaming versions arrive the same day. Preorders are open now.
The first disc pairs the remastered album with four bonus tracks: “The Pessimist,” “Hate Not Gone,” “Anna” and “Home Again.” “The Pessimist” was previously released digitally as part of a Transformers soundtrack. This is its first time on a physical release.
The second disc holds the archive material: “Full of Empty (2026 Version),” a new mix of “Saturday Mourning,” and previously unreleased demos, rough mixes and alternate versions of nearly every song on the album. Among them are a demo of “Hesitate” with strings and a demo of “Anna” with its original lyrics.
The third disc is a full concert recorded November 7, 2010, at the Brighton Centre in Brighton, England, during the Audio Secrecy tour. It includes “Through Glass,” “Bother,” “Mission Statement” and “Digital (Did You Tell).” The recording was previously available only as a fan-club DVD. New liner notes come from Ryan J. Downey.
For a band that has said little for six years, the release is modest in scope and specific in what it is: an old album, expanded, with one song finally finished.
