Whoa...

I picked up this CD from an HMV in Richmond, BC, while I was visiting up with some relatives of mine. I wanted something new to listen to on the long trip back home, so I decided to shelve out the paper to purchase Slipknot's new and undoubtably disturbing creation, Iowa (Their home state, as a matter of fact). I had pretty solid expectations for this album - I mean, I'd bought their 1999 self-titled piece of work, and was fairly impressed - it was gonna be 14 tracks of some truly fucked metal, much like their previous excursion.

And I was not dissapointed in the least.

Okay, I went over this in my previous Slipknot review; Slipknot is definatly not for everybody. These lyrics are downright nasty, alright? The warning on the cover of the CD isn't false advertising... the word 'fuck' is muttered so frequently (in one form or another) that it beats out Eminem by a longshot when it comes to amount of obscenities on a single album. That being said, I'll continue.

This is one energetic band - I'm suprised that Corey (the lead singer) can keep up his mind-wrenching screams throughout many of the songs ...he almost raps the lyrics out, very very fast, making it difficult to understand what he's saying without the aid of a lyric sheet. Nearly every song is incredibly fast-paced, with insane stretches of drums and guitar...

It's not particularily harmonic, but you wouldn't be listening to Slipknot if you wanted something that was easy on the ears.

One thing that I noticed as missing from this album are the crazy intros from 1999's Slipknot - most of the songs open up with a barrage of guitar and a scream, as opposed to funky DJ work. In fact, I didn't notice much scratching, or much of any DJ involvement on Iowa. Ah well.

BUT, there is a freaky intro-track to the whole CD. It sounds like the band recorded themselves backwards while screaming...play it on a loud stereo system to get the whole, creepy effect. Or try it with headphones...

Some of these songs are incredibly catchy. Although most follow a similar pattern, there are parts in almost every song that are so very very cool. Taking Heretic Anthem as an example: "If you're five five five, then I'm S-I-X S-I-X S-I-X!!! What's it like to be a heretic?!". That's a great track right there, yessir.

If you're a Slipknot fan, do not hesitate - get Iowa, now. I got this CD on the Tuesday it was in stores, and it's been taking up most of my listening time ever since. In my deranged opinion, it's better than the much-loved self-titled album of 1999... a little harsher, in my opinion - and that's a good thing. Angry Slipknot maggots rejoice... ARTIST: Slipknot

ALBUM TITLE: Iowa

NUMBER OF TRACKS: 14

LENGTH OF ALBUM: 66 minutes, 20 seconds

FAVOURITE TRACKS: Heretic Anthem, My Plague, Gently

QUALITY: 4.3/5