Review Summary: Their angriest, and their second best.
2 of 5 thought this review was well writtenIowa is a middle of the road album for Slipknot. It is not an album that sucks as hard as All Hope Is Gone, but nor is it on the level of Vol. 3. This is an album where Slipknot had nothing to prove but a lot of emotion to let loose-raw hate, as displayed by the album cover, the music, and even the song titles. It is easily the heaviest album by the band and is frequently considered to be the best of the four.
After a very creepy one minute intro, we dive straight into the world of hate that Slipknot have weaved together with the song People = ***. Right from the off it is clear that Slipknot have grown both heavier and a lot better as musicians, and Corey Taylor's vocals are at their most intense other than on the song Purity. In my opinion this is one of the best songs off the album, displaying all of Slipknot's early trademarks, including a little rapping ridiculous drumming from Joey Jordison. This was the finest way they could have kicked off this album.
The next track, Disasterpiece, is fantastic, before diving into one of the weaker tracks, My Plague. This was written for the Resident Evil Soundtrack, and is truely one of their worst, most generic songs they have ever written. Luckily, the fantastic Everything Ends follows this. This song talked about Corey's self harming past, and has some fantastic vocals and an infectuous chorus.
The one other song i would really like to talk about off of this album is New Abortion. In people's "best Slipknot songs" list, this is so often slept on, and i have not gopt a ***ing clue why. Everything about this song is completely chaotic, but always in a good way. Corey's ranting vocals complement the absolutely bat *** insane instrumentals.
Where this album succeeds is in It's vocals and It's strongest tracks. However, there is a lot of filler that drags this album down a lot. There are a couple of more experimental songs on this album, such as the re-hash of Gently, which was originally found on the Mate Feed Kill Repeat demo. Basically, it is an extremely varied album.
Overall, i recommend this to anyone, as it is worth a listen, just do not expect anything too stellar. Their finest album was just around the corner.
