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As a follow up to my earlier post I thought it would be fun to do a bit more of an in depth retrospective on Slipknot. As I said before they’re often a very flawed band, even if I do love them, so I’ll be going through each of their studio albums and discussing what I like and what I dislike about them. Note that I am only covering official album releases, as such the early demo Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. is not included

Slipknot (1999)

With their self-titled debut, and especially the hit single “Wait and Bleed,” the nu-metal nontet exploded onto the scene. While firmly grounded in the oft-hated genre, featuring turntables semi-rapped vocals, the band were notably heavier than their contemporaries, and while that didn’t necessarily earn them any fans among “true” metalheads, it did cause them to become many people’s gateway into heavier music.

Slipknot is the band’s dumbest and most juvenile album and honestly it’s easy to see where the Slipknot’s biggest detractors are coming from when you listen to this album. Tracks like “Spit it Out,” while fun in a live setting, is utterly embarrassing lyrically, with lines like, “You big motherfucker, Stupid cocksucker/Oh you’re scared of me now? Then you’re dumber than I thought,” and, “Step to me I smear ya. Think I fear ya? Bullshit./You’re just another dumb punk chomping at this tit.”

Lines like these are honestly terrible, and pretty much impossible to defend, but while I find this to be the band’s worst album, I still get some joy out of it. It may be dumb and overly angry, but it is so in such an endearing and energetic way. The lyrics may be stupid but the feeling behind them is genuine, and once you ignore the angst you can see just how much frontman Corey Taylor is putting into his vocals, especially on tracks like “Eyeless” where he sounds certifiably insane.

This album may represent the worst of Slipknot, but it has a certain charm to it. It’s the band at their dumbest, but also at their rawest and there’s something enjoyable in that.

Iowa (2001)

Iowa is Slipknot’s crowning achievement to this day. Taking the nu-metal of their previous album and making it heavier than any mainstream band had ever done (going so far as to incorporate death metal influences), it proved that Slipknot were able to meld the mainstream accessibility of nu-metal with truly heavy music. Even some of the band’s biggest detractors will begrudgingly admit that Iowa is a good album.

And it’s easy to see why this is the album that wins many non-fans over. Iowa is heavy as hell and represents Slipknot at their angriest and most abrasive. Furthermore, the band managed to improve on their lyrics (to some degree) without sacrificing any of the genuine anger behind the music.

This album never fails to get me pumped. It’s pure primal aggression but still manages to keep simple, yet highly enjoyable, song structures with big, powerful songs like “People = Shit” and “The Heretic Anthem.” At the same time, it isn’t afraid to get weird or even uncomfortable at other points in the album, which was always one of the best things about early Slipknot. Corey Taylor has never sounded better than on this album, and the rest of the band absolutely kill it too.

Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses (2004)

Vol. 3 marked a massive change in style for Slipknot. Here the band incorporated more simplistic song structures and clean vocals (with Taylor’s harsh vocals undergoing a very noticeable change). What that creates is a much more mature album, with some great songs, but also an album that sacrifices the primal anger of the previous two records.

To go from the death metal influenced work of Iowa to the arena-rock style of songs like “Before I Forget” and “Pulse of the Maggots” or acoustic ballads like “Circle” and “Vermilion Pt. 2” is some major whiplash, but it’s not necessarily a bad change. The album is far more diverse than previous works and has the band trying out some surprising styles. To hear the band most famous for wearing dumb masks and being the soundtrack to every angsty teen who’s mad at their parent’s life, playing a soft acoustic rock song is certainly surprising (at least if you’re not familiar with Taylor and Jim Root’s work in Stone Sour) but they’re good enough songwriters that they make it work.

For many Vol. 3 was a major step down for Slipknot, but I don’t necessarily see it that way. It’s different, and while I don’t like it quite as much as Iowa, that doesn’t necessarily mean I think it’s worse than that album. Vol. 3 easily takes its place as my second favourite Slipknot album.

All Hope is Gone (2008)

All Hope is Gone is an odd beast to review. As an album it’s great, containing some fantastic songs, including what may be my favourite, the rock-ballad “Snuff.” So what’s the problem? Well, while Vol. 3 turned down the heaviness, it still felt like a Slipknot album. I’m not sure I can say the same about All Hope is Gone.

It’s not like the album isn’t heavy. Tracks like “Gematria (The Killing Name)” and “This Cold Black” are far heavier than anything found on the previous album. The problem is that many of the tracks are simply missing that Slipknot touch. Instead the album sounds more like Corey Taylor’s other band, Stone Sour. Not that that’s a bad thing, I’d rank Stone Sour’s double album House of Gold and Bones above anything Slipknot have done.

It just feels as if this album is more of a Taylor-led beast than previous works (although as far as I can find, this isn’t actually the case). Take “Dead Memories” for example. It’s a great song, there’s no doubt about that. But it doesn’t have the same feeling that the rest of the band’s work does, instead it feel more like a fairly atypical radio metal song. On top of this, while previous albums (including Vol. 3) weren’t afraid to get weird, everything about All Hope is Gone sounds fairly predictable. When the songs do sound more like Slipknot, such as the title track or “Psychosocial,” they sound very run-of-the-mill.

Don’t get me wrong, neither of those songs are bad. In fact, the album as a whole is great and in some ways I even like it more than Vol. 3. But it doesn’t truly feel like a Slipknot album. This doesn’t necessarily detract from the album’s quality, but aside from “Snuff” and the album’s heavier songs, it leaves little that would have a major impact on the listener. The songs are enjoyable, no doubt about that, it’s just that that’s all they are.

The Future

Slipknot are getting ready to release their fifth studio album later this year. Promising a return to roots, the first single “The Negative One” achieved this, with a sound that would fit right in on the band’s debut. (Incidentally, the song has grown on me a lot since the writing of that review). While one track certainly isn’t enough to gauge the sound of their upcoming album, it has been enough to get me hyped, and hopefully that hype will be solidified when the second single, “The Devil in I” drops later this month.