Corey Taylor — KOKO, London, 2016

On 8 May 2016, Corey Taylor, frontman of Slipknot and Stone Sour, took the KOKO stage in London alone for a fully acoustic live concert released as “Live in London.” Stripped of his bands’ fury, the set pares his songs to the bone: acoustic guitar, bare voice and long, candid pauses between numbers. The programme blends his own material (“Zzyzx Rd.,” “Snuff,” “Bother”) with a telling spread of covers that map his influences, from the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil” to Creedence’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?,” the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love” and a tongue-in-cheek SpongeBob SquarePants theme. The full concert closes on a “Folsom Prison Blues / Mystery Train / American Nightmare” medley, then an encore in which “Through Glass” and “Spit It Out” find unexpected intimacy. A reference live capture for anyone wanting to hear Taylor’s songwriting laid bare, this London performance documents a more folk-leaning, confessional side of one of American metal’s great voices.