Snuff

Snuff was released on 28 September 2009 as the fifth and final single from All Hope Is Gone. Led by acoustic guitars, melodic singing and clean tones, it is considered the band's softest song, and it peaked at number two on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, the band's highest placement at the time. Jordison recalled that Taylor showed him the song while he and Gray were working on the album. He had Taylor lay down a scratch track, then went in late at night without telling him and recorded drums over it. When Taylor heard the result the next day, Jordison said, he started crying, and Jordison called it Taylor's masterpiece. Taylor said he wrote it specifically for Slipknot, and told Kerrang! in 2018 that it was recorded mainly because Gray championed it.

Reviews of the album split on the ballad. AllMusic's Stephen Erlewine warned that one more power ballad like it could derail the record, while Rolling Stone's Chris Steffen called it the album's most melodic song. The video, co-directed by Crahan and P. R. Brown, premiered on 18 December 2009 and features Malcolm McDowell and Ashley Laurence. Roadrunner placed it sixth among its greatest music videos.