Slipknot

Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (Roadrunner)
by Martin Popoff

Surprisingly little hype this time out, and no fancy booklet shenanigans either (although the title’s more than a little messy), as America’s ugliest big (and big) band return for their fourth album, if you dismiss their suggestion that it’s the third. And wow, one wonders how the fans are going to take this one. They shouldn’t revolt, given that the record’s massive totality still bleeds Slipknot. Tracks like “Welcome” bring back the band’s patented heart-busting punk rock nü metal death, but elsewhere, there are choruses, melodic vocals, very musical touches, many more than on previous albums. And chopping it all up, just as you think you’ve got a line on ‘er, the rock world’s largest democracy tosses the channel changer back and forth for parts that don’t fit, parts that break down, parts distinguished by fluttering, spare, exquisitely recorded drum fills. Indeed, Jordison is everywhere on here, propelling the shocking number of groovy, rock’n’rolling tracks (check out “Pulse of the Maggots,” “Before I Forget,” “Duality,” and “The Blister Exists”) forward quite effortlessly.

Then there are ballads, or more accurately, broken shards of ballad bits, often bookended by trippy, complex studio tricks and kicks courtesy of knob-jobber Rick Rubin. There is most definitely an oil drum full of rapid-fire aural delights all over this thing to extract, examine, and return. Hell, the vocal arrangements alone would take a few pages to diagram, and that dept. isn’t even first star, that award going to the rhythmic clinic put on by the indeterminate number of percussion contributors in the Clown-led coven.
(www.roadrunnerrecords.com)