An audio snippet of "The Travellers Part 1", a brand new song from STONE SOUR, can be streamed using the SoundCloud player below. The track is taken from "House Of Gold And Bones - Part 1", the first half of STONE SOUR's upcoming two-disc concept album. The first CD arrives on October 23, while the second half will come out next year, probably in May. Singer Corey Taylor told The Pulse Of Radio that the project has turned out even better than he had hoped. "It's some of the best work we've ever done," he said. "Song-wise, guitar-wise, performance-wise, I mean, everything. It's so good. It's come out so much better than I thought it was going to. It's surpassed all of our expectations. It's really, really good."

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the making of the project, Taylor said, "Even with the time constraints we had, we basically recorded two albums in the time it takes to record one. So we were doing double-duty every day. I was tracking two songs vocally a day just to keep us on a deadline and it really pushed us to strive for excellence."

The singer also said that the band wanted to "really try and go for (a) natural vibe on this without using a ton of samples and really try to differentiate us from everybody else out there . . . we wanted to really capture a unique sound."

"House of Gold & Bones - Part 1" track listing:

01. Gone Sovereign
02. Absolute Zero
03. A Rumor Of Skin
04. The Travellers Part 1
05. Tired
06. RU486
07. My Name Is Allen
08. Taciturn
09. Influence Of A Drowsy God
10. The Travellers Part 2
11. Last Of The Real

STONE SOUR has tapped Johny Chow as its live bassist for the band's upcoming tour behind "House Of Gold And Bones". Chow has formerly played with metal acts SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY and FIREBALL MINISTRY, and replaces Shawn Economaki, who bowed out of the band earlier this year for personal reasons.

The group tapped Rachel Bolan of SKID ROW to play bass on the album itself, and Taylor told The Pulse Of Radio how that came together. "I'm well-documented being a huge SKID ROW fan. I can't remember who brought the name up, but I immediately was like, 'Dude, absolutely.' We knew somebody who had his number, so I called him and within 24 hours he was basically getting ready to do it. And he's just one of the coolest dudes on the planet and he schooled it. People are going to be very impressed by the bass playing."

Guitarist Josh Rand told Metalshrine about Bolan's involvement in the album, "It was a great experience. He's a phenomenal writer on top of being a phenomenal bass player and he brought this style into it that we felt had been lacking. Instead of following the guitars, he actually plays bass and it elevated all of the songs to a whole new level."

Bolan was unable to join STONE SOUR on tour because of his previous commitments to SKID ROW.

STONE SOUR will play a couple of festival dates in South America in early November before heading overseas later this fall for a European tour.

"The Travellers Part 1" audio snippet:



"A Rumor Of Skin" audio snippet:



"Gone Sovereign" and "Absolute Zero" audio stream: