When I first heard there was to be a follow-up third album to Slipknots terrible mess of an album ‘IOWA’, I thought ‘Oh no not another review where I end up writing ‘pretentious’ ‘rubbish’ and ‘an insult to metal’ over and over again. But in my tradition or testing everything no matter what I assume it to be like I had to see if this album completed the trilogy of errors or whether the Nine-piece band could produce at least something worth listening too somehow.

PRELUDE 3.0:

THE BLISTER EXISTS: Okay now this is a bit more like what slipknot used to do except for one thing. While it has a lot of their screaming and messy guitars it actually has a structure to it, it doesn’t feel like a complete mess, although when the vocals come in it starts to grow tiring quickly, it’s quite a long song and can grow tedious half way through. The chorus is ok, it’s more melodic than slipknots usually do and it sounds better because of that. However at the end there is a 1 minute long drum solo which shows some really good drumming, which is the best thing about this song as the rest isn’t up to much.

DAULITY: This is the bands first single, and is probably the best song on the album. With a opening Corey whispers ‘I push my fingers into my eyes’ it soon breaks into a much louder driving chorus with some decent drumming and guitar work. The verses are more of a rapping, quiet nature, and they aren’t the strongest part of this song, the strong point of it is its chorus which makes it the best song on the album, its got a few elements of Stone Sour in it.

CIRCLE: Ok now things get weird, no your ears do not deceive you this is an acoustic song and yes it sounds like something Limp Bizkit or Staind would do! It’s not bad, but it doesn’t really fit very well in the grand scheme of things. The guitars are basic and the vocals get a little mundane after a while, unfortunately there’s a few of these on the album.

BEFORE I FORGET: In a complete reversal, this song happens to be one of my favourites on the album. In begins in Korn-Esque style opening riff before leading onto something a little different. The vocals are average during the verse, but during the Chorus where Corey songs ‘I was a creature before I could stand, I will remember before I forget’, the Chorus has to be the best Slipknot have ever produced, they are much better at doing music a bit more organised and structured.
The Bridge is very Limp bizkity, but works well in this case with a down tuned guitar solo before leading onto the chorus again, good song anyway!

THE NAMELESS: This is another Iowa-esque song at first, with the disjointed vocals drums and guitars, and again it doesn’t work too well. Suddenly though it breaks into an acoustic piece, for about 15 seconds and then it goes back into the stupidity of the intro. It’s slightly interesting in this format, but not enough to make it a memorable nor is a good song, although the riffage during the bridge of the song is decent. Even the drumming getting tired now though!

DANGER! KEEP AWAY: Not a lot to say about this song, it’s half acoustic and half no guitars at all. Obviously an attempt to finish on a soft note, but it doesn’t really work at all, Vermillion part two would have worked much better here, and it’s a poor end to a mixed album!

Not many bands release their best work last, but that’s the way Slipknot have decided to do it. There’s a lot more depth, structure and sound to this album, it still retains a few of the typical Slipknot moments, but for the most part it shows an improved band.