August 28, 2001 - Iowa

It's a triple release day! A little after two years since their wildly succesful self-titled debut, Slipknot released their second album "Iowa" on August 28, 2001. This was the first album where guitarist Jim Root was involved from the beginning after joining very late during the process last album and this album is collectively known as Slipknot's darkest and heaviest album. Sounds good to me, let's dive in!

The album opens with a short song called "(515)" and it has Sid Wilson (turntables) on vocals! It's a whole bunch of short clips of Sid making weird noises, even crying and weeping it sounds like, and him screaming the word death at the top of his lungs. It's a pretty trippy opener that leads right into "People = Shit" and they dive right into a fast-paced, heavy and pretty sweet riff with some blistering fast guitars and drums. There's a lot going on, including some great screams by Corey Taylor and I live his "here we go again motherfucker!" as Craig Jones adds some cool keyboards to this heavy and sweet main riff. The chorus is super heavy and sweet with Corey belting out the name of the song and also rapping some fast stuff inbetween! Joey Jordison's drums are incredibly fast and everything sounds pretty fucking awesome! A pretty fucking good "opener" to get the blood pumping! Track 3 is "Disasterpiece" and Root plays a distorted and cool guitar riff to kick things off. The rest of the band builds around it until we have a loud, full and cool main riff and Corey's first lyric is "I'm gonna slit your throat and fuck the world" and the heaviness is in full blast! Words couldn't do proper justice to the chaotic and heavy music these 9 guys can conjure up, there's just too much to possibly talk about it all! Lots of cool drums, lots of great guitars and bass, some great screaming by Taylor, it's all pretty sweet! They slow things down for a short bit as Taylor sings in a whisper, then they nicely ramp it up for a super heavy finale. Another banger, maybe not as good as the last one, but still pretty good! The next track is "My Plague" and it's got a fast-paced and cool main riff with some cool percussion behind some pretty damn heavy guitars and bass. Taylor screams another great verse, but he sings the chorus on this song end he sounds good, but not nearly as epic and heavy. This pretty much sums up this whole song, but the heavy verses sound great and the chorus is decent enough. Track 5 is "Everything Ends" and Taylor sings the first chorus, then everything goes to the max with a fantastic main riff! The screaming, the heavy and catchy guitars, the awesome drums, and all in a pretty catchy package! After a couple awesome rounds Root takes us in a new direction with a cool new guitar riff and they build nicely around this for a pretty awesome bridge part with more great contributions from everyone. A pretty freaking awesome song, well done guys! Up next is "The Heretic Anthem" and after a countdown that had three 6's they kick into another fast-paced, heavy and pretty freaking sweet main riff. The chorus is a nice heavy sing-along, but they do play it a lot. Once again words don't do proper justice to everything that is going on, there's so much awesomeness, especially Taylor's ferocious vocals. Absolutely no let-up so far this album! Track 7 is "Gently" and it's got a very slow pace with some nice low bass by Paul Gray keeping the pace. Shawn Crahan adds some epic percussion to the background and slowly the other members start to join the mix until they complete the main riff with some (finally) heavy guitars and some nice long screams by Taylor. It's still a cool song for sure, but until the final minute when everyone goes full metal ( it's a pretty cool last minute) it's just missing the energy and excitement of a typical Slipknot song. Still well done though! The next track was a fairly succesful single, "Left Behind", and Root leads the way with another cool and heavy guitar riff and Jordison adds some pretty great drums. Taylor does a good job of mixing his singing and screaming on this one and while I of course prefer the screams, he very tastefully sings in both the verse and chorus. It's a pretty catchy chorus so I can see why this was a single, but as a far as singles go, this was still plenty heavy and definitely not something I've ever heard on the radio! Track 9 is "The Shape" and Slipknot just continue to pump out heavy and sweet main riffs, words don't do proper justice to all these different and very unique riffs. The verse is quiet on this song, but it just makes the slamming into the chorus sound even heavier! Taylor once again sings and screams back-and-forth and things sound pretty good. After a couple rounds a catchy new guitar riff takes us in a new direction and both Root and Mick Thomson play some sweet guitars, all while the 3 drummers provide a cacophony sounds in the background. Taylor sounds awesome screaming a new verse overtop and this whole part was pretty fucking good, including some turntables (which have been way less frequent this album) before they return to the still pretty good chorus to close it out.  Up next is "I Am Hated" and there's no let-up as they move right into another fast, heavy, and pretty sweet riff. It's a typically sweet Slipknot song and I'm running out of things to say that in words all sound the same, but it's yet another unique and super cool riff where they somehow involve nine different guys, and everything sounds great! This song has it all: interesting keyboards, turntables, tons of fast and different drums, super heavy bass and guitars, and the continued amazing screaming of Taylor. It's just another well above average tune! The next track is the near 7 minute "Skin Ticket" and we hear all kinds of trippy and psychedelic noises over a space-y yet heavy backdrop. Along with some cool drums by Jordison, Crahan plays some timpani drums that sound super loud and epic and Chris Fehn plays some other drums as well and this all makes for a super creepy vibe. Taylor almost whispers the verse to match the mood perfectly and then they ramp wonderfully into a nice and heavy chorus with some more typical awesome screaming. The combination of these two parts makes each sound so much better and eventually things devolve into a heavy, distorted mess of sounds and Taylor is pouring out his emotions into his screams. It's pretty fucking dark and heavy, I like this kind of psychedelic experimentation! The next track is "New Abortion" and words have become pretty meaningless: more great screams, lots of great guitar, lots of great drums, just some typically wicked Slipknot! After a couple rounds they nicely quietly things down as Taylor whispers "you can't take my soul away from me" and then they snap beautifully into a super heavy riff as Taylor then screams the same line with all his might. Some more pretty cool stuff! Track 13 is "Metabolic" and guess what I'm gonna say? Words don't do justice anymore! Wilson adds some cool turntables to another speedy and super heavy main riff and the heaviness is just relentless this album! More great contributions from everyone as Slipknot just continue to pump out some of the best heavy metal you'll hear this year! The final track on the album is also Slipknot's longest song in their career, the 15 minute title track "Iowa". It starts quietly with some trippy percussion and other noises until Gray comes in with a slow, trippy, and cool bass riff that keeps the pace for most of this long song. There's some solid but repetitive drums in the background and this is a really long and slow build-up that takes several minutes. About three minutes in the loud guitars finally join in to turn this slow riff heavy and Taylor sings a quiet verse to match the mood nicely, adding in some quiet screams here and there that sound pretty good. Things eventually return to being quiet and Taylor just seems to be muttering to himself overtop the slow bass and drums. It's not bad, but it's certainly a little bland, especially for these guys who are usually anything but. Around ten minutes in Taylor is finally screaming in your face and now things sound pretty heavy and sweet! This devolves into full chaos and reminds me a bit of Korn when everyone just absolutely breaks down, and it sounds pretty sweet here as well! All these segues between the loud and quiet parts are really well done as well as Slipknot shows they can be progressive, and be great at that too! They end the song on a quiet note and it takes a bit Die things to finally die down, bringing us to just over fifteen minutes.

That is the end of "Iowa" and I thought it was another pretty fantastic album from Slipknot! I think I did enough raving during the review, but these 9 guys just released 14 more pretty good songs. The fact that I think it's not as good as their debut album is only because "Slipknot" was so unbelievably awesome, this is still a phenomenal album and one of the best #2s you'll find. Keep it coming Slipknot!