Emily Hearn’s sonic journey on Hourglass shows that she is a woman coming into her own, figuring out the knots of past heartache, the bliss of newlywed life, and the passage of time.

Time acts as the overarching narrative on the record; Hourglass spans the two years following the Athens, GA native’s debut Red Balloon and 2013 EP Promises. “We fall in or out of love as time moves us,” she explains. “We learn life-changing lessons as time goes on. We figure out how to handle important relationships as time shapes us. We decide who we want to be and what we believe as time reveals our priorities. And ultimately, we grow older as time goes by.”

Hearn sings wistfully “Oh, to be young, and to have time” on the third track “Oak Tree,” longing for the naïve feeling that time would never move forward, or at least not so fast. She frets over seeing her parents age so quickly. The existential worries of a twenty-something come delivered in a package of a catchy, infectious chorus and clap-along-able melody.

Anger and sorrow: two emotions inextricably linked, the yin and yang of loss. Emotions that can drive human beings to implosion or to greatness. In the not too distant past, judging by a number of tragedies and crises in the Slipknot camp, implosion seemed a likely outcome.

Then again, Slipknot have always seemed on the edge of implosion, and this is part of what makes their music—and live performances, especially—feel so dangerous, yet so intoxicatingly fun.

Anger and sorrow are also the driving forces behind .5: The Gray Chapter. Balancing these emotions within the context of a metal album, without sounding forced or contrived, is no easy task, but Slipknot pulls it off with aplomb here. Take “AOV,” for starters, which alternates between furious verses and choruses you just have to sing along with before it slams the brakes completely and sinks into a bittersweet bridge section tailor-made for late nights under black lights. Or “Killpop,” a dark and twisted pseudo-ballad reminiscent of something from Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses, minor and major key melodies intertwining and tightening like piano wire until the song explodes into complete chaos.