On August 28, 2001, SLIPKNOT released Iowa through Roadrunner Records — the sound of a band coming apart at maximum volume. Recorded between January and March 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys with producer Ross Robinson, the sessions were genuinely poisonous: substance abuse, internal fights, and Corey Taylor recording vocals in states of physical and psychological extremity that have become legend. Robinson himself worked through a fractured back from a dirt bike crash. The result was far heavier and more technical than the debut, drawing openly on death metal across "People = Shit" and "Disasterpiece," and closing with a fifteen-minute title track that remains the band's longest song. It hit number three on the Billboard 200, topped the UK chart, and went platinum in the US, UK and Canada. Loudwire later ranked it fourth among all nu metal albums.