Slipknot (Slipknot in general)

Member Name: NMSO4

Product:	Slipknot in general
Date:	12/09/01 (1379 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Music, Great Playing, Great riffs

Disadvantages: None...

Slipknot, well what can I say about them really so many people now know slipknot so well but only a year or so ago if you said “Slipknot” someone would just say “who?” This really shows how they have hit the big time, but are they starting to fail under the pressure of fame after the release of the new album ‘Iowa’?

I first really hear Slipknot when the ‘Wait and Bleed’ Single hit the charts, I had heard stuff before and some of my friends told me they were a great band but I never really remembered to follow it up and get some stuff by them. But when I heard ‘Wait and Bleed’ I knew then it was time to go out and find all the info I could on the band and of course, get some of their music!

Ok, well I better explain the band for you people out there who may not have a clue what I’m going on about here…

Slipknot is a nine peace (yes, that’s nine members!) original heavy metal band from Iowa in America, they started off practicing in one of the members basements and they gained a fan base over here from air play on some rock shows on radio and the television, when they came over here they were met by a massive following and so they then had the strength to go back into America and succeed.

All the band wear boiler suits and masks, each band member has a number and a different mask, the numbers and masks of each member are below. They have a selection of about twelve different colour boiler suits, the started of with red ones, just like the normal ones you can buy in the shops, but now they has custom made suits, the same with the masks, all originally made by the members out of paper by the members that they belonged to- now they are latex and things, complicated. The band members are as follows:

(#0) Sid Wilson –
Sid is the DJ of the group, he is also know as DJ Starscream and will be releasing a solo album soon under that name, but th
at’s another review… He wears a black gas mask as his mask, but now it is a custom one that is a skull that is moulded with a gas mask, he also has a white one and black one.

(#1) Joey Jordison –
Joey is the drummer of the band, he wears a Japanese white mask and he has several, some with blood on and others with various black painted lines on. Joey has long strait black hair with the red strips in it, something that a lot of Slipknot fans like to copy in their hair.

(#2) Paul Grey –
Paul was on of the two original founders on Slipknot, along with Mike, one of the guitarists. Paul is the bass player of the band; he wears a latex pig mask.

(#3) Chris Fehn –
Most Slipknot fans will know this guy well, with is rubber mask with the 7” long nose! Chris is one of the two ‘custom percussionists’ of the band; he has a set of steel drums. The other percussionist is Shawn, the famous man in the clown mask.

(#4) James Root –
James is the second guitarist of the band, he wears a sort of jesters mask, with the top ripped off, so his hair hangs out over the mask. He has kept the same mask from the start but has changes the colour of his hair; he now has blonde/white high lights all over.

(#5) Craig Jones-
Craig is in charge of all the samples/media and works on a computer and sometimes on Sid’s decks, adding the samples to the songs and changing bits etc. He originally wore a helmet with a mask over the top with nails taped to the top sticking out (so when he was head banging they looked as though they were rubber, but moved because they were not secure!) Now he has just a round ball of a mask with loads of spikes sticking out, with eyeholes cut and a zip across the mouth, in my opinion the older mask was better, this mask is a bit bland.

(#6) Shawn Crahan –
Shawn, apart from maybe Corey has to be the best know member of Slipknot, with hi
s clown mask, no a new mask with an evil clown, with a pentagram cut into the front (looking like real blood coming out) and brain matter showing at the top, maybe not as effective as before as a clown but still looks cool. Shawn is the second ‘custom custom percussionist’ of the band, and has his own drum kit, which he uses to create extra drumming, which adds a lot of depth to the songs.

(#7) Mick Thompson –
Mick is the main guitarist of the band, although I would say that the guitarists to about equal work in different songs. He wears a leather bondage type; face mask made from black leather.

(#8) Corey Taylor –
This is the man you must have heard about! He is the lead singer of the band. He originally wore a facemask and put his dreadlocks through holes in the top of it, but got fed up of doing that so he just cut them off and stuck them on the mask! Now though he has a full head covering (well, several actually, a black one and a grey one as far as I know) made of latex with coloured rope as the dreadlocks on the top of the mask. It is Corey’s powerful vocals that are part responsible for making Slipknot so big.

Ok, so there are the band members for you, so now you know want to know more yes? Good, now slipknot have been around for a number of years now, originally formed by Paul and Mick in about 1995/1996 the line-up has changed slightly since then and they have got a lot bigger! The have released in there career three albums, but I expect you have only heard of two of them, so I will tell you about all of them:

Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat –
This album was independently released in 1996/1997 and there were only one thousand ever made, only five hundred of these are expected to still be in existence in the world. This album is very different to the others as it has more of a funk fell to it (as Joey is heavily into funk music, or was at the time anyway) so for now I will call it &
#8216;funk metal’. This funk metal is a mix of heavy guitars with a bit of dance/funk music, it sounds rather good actually! The CD has eight tracks on it:

-Slipknot
-Gently (original and better version, what a great riff!)
-Do Nothing/Bitchslap
-Only One (original, less heavy version)
-Tattered & Torn (original, less heavy version- with out the freaky riff)
-Confessions
-Somefeel
-Killers are Quiet (the same as ‘Iowa’ Just not as heavy and only ten minuets long)
-Dogfish Rising (secret track made of samples and mixing, only on this CD)

The cover is a picture of Joey in what looks like a house, the picture is all green and taken from above. All these tracks except ‘Dogfish Rising’ have been re-released on a CD that you can buy in most shops now.

Slipknot –
This is the album that brought us the famous ‘Wait and Bleed’ and ‘Spit it Out’ singles so if you are a fan reading this the I probably don’t need to tell you how brilliant this album it is, but if you want to get into Slipknot the this is the album to get, it’s the in between of the heaviness of Iowa, and some of the calmness of Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. And if you get the Digi-pak you can get extra tracks. The album was originally released in 1999 but then a wile later it was re-released with the tracks ‘Purity’ and ‘Frail Limb Nursery’ changed for ‘Me Inside’, the original is now pretty hard to get hold of. The tracks are as follows:

-742617000027 (a track made of mixing and samples)
-(Sic)
-Eyeless
-Wait and Bleed
-Surfacing
-Spit it Out
-Tattered & Torn (new version with freaky riff and more samples)
-Me Inside
-Liberate
-Prosthetics
-No Life
-Diluted
-Only One (new version with samples)
-Scissors
-Get This *
-Interloper *
-Despise *
-Eeyore (secret track)

>Tracks with a (*) by them are added tracks to the Digi-pak.

Iowa –
Well, this album has to be one of the most talked about releases of the year, after it was finally out it went strait to number one of the album charts. This album in a way is a slight let down, although it is growing on me a lot I feel that it has not has as much ‘Slipknot magic’ put into it as the first album, it feels like they have made this one quicker because they just wanted to get an album out there into the world quickly, so they don’t fade away, which I doubt they would anyway. This album is still very good but its all go-go heavy and there are no real soulful songs like Prosthetics on the album, the single ‘Left Behind’ is a good track though, but maybe not up there with Wait and Bleed. The Tracks are as follows:

-(515)
-People = Sh*t
-Disasterpiece
-My Plague
-Everything Ends
-The Heretic Anthem
-Gently (heavier version of the MFKR album version, not as good)
-Left Behind
-The Shape
-I Am Hated
-Skin Ticket
-New Abortion
-Metabolic
-Iowa (heavier version of the MFKR killers are quiet song)

The album cover and book are made to a great standard though, there is a white and a shiny silver version available- the book inside has semi transparent pages, with the band members on one side and the lyrics on the other, very good.

Over all Slipknot are one of the best metal acts ever but I fear they may be losing it and just turning to pure heavy metal, although I do still like it a lot, don’t get me wrong there. So I think this is the end, thanks for reading :o)



NMSO4

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