It's no easy task to write a review of an album that has sold over three million copies to date. It was this very release that made the band famous, brought them numerous awards and incredible success. Many call this record the debut, and that's essentially correct -- "Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat," released three years earlier, was a demo recording. There are two main versions of the album "Slipknot" -- American and European, differing in their tracklists; we have the latter before us.
What do we hear first of all when this record starts playing? Samples -- the very thing that gives SLIPKNOT's sound its distinctive character. They assault the ears, but the album is hard to imagine without them. Genre-wise, the release is extremely difficult to define unambiguously. The core is rooted in hardcore and angry thrash traditions, while at the same time the compositions feature a great deal of electronics, and the barrage of drums combined with periodically emerging sharp, precise riffs add a death metal component to the songs. The vocals oscillate from quiet whispering or calmly delivered rap to furious screaming and growling. From time to time we also hear excellent clean vocals from Corey Taylor, for instance on what is arguably the album's main hit, "Wait And Bleed." The lyrics, also written by him, provoked a highly controversial reaction, including difficulties with releasing the album in the USA (this being the main reason for the tracklist differences between countries). Disillusionment with the surrounding reality was filtered through the prism of extreme aggression directed at that very reality and an enormous amount of profanity. All of this, combined with vivid live performances in which the members appeared before audiences in masks, brought the band raging popularity both at home and abroad.