Slipknot - Slipknot (1999)^{Release ID: 5211}

I remember it’s late ’99 and I’m a recently converted 12 year-old metal fan. I was into bands like Metallica, Megadeth and KISS, but there was a band that a few other metal kids at school were digging, that were heavier and way more aggressive than the bands I liked. They were listening to ‘Slipknot’, the self-titled major label debut by American nu metal band, Slipknot. 

Admittedly, I wasn’t really a fan back then. Not for any particular reason, I’d just never gotten around to giving the ‘Knot much of a chance. I knew all the stories about them… how they pissed on the floor and rolled around in it before gigs. How they’d decapitate goats and flaunt the heads around backstage. How they’d physically fight each other to get psyched up for gigs. The absolute nonsense you’d believe as a kid was unreal! 

But here I am now, it’s 2026 and I’m nearly 40 years-old. Am I too old for this nonsense now? Well, no. I’m not. 

The music is still aggressive as hell, and the band are incredibly tight with their playing. This was in nu metal’s heyday, so there wasn’t much in terms of guitar solos etc. Just riffs galore and constant shouting. I’ve always thought Slipknot’s earlier releases did sound a bit muddy and unpolished, but I guess that just adds to the intensity. Overall though, there’s a number of highlights, but the album (like a lot of nu metal releases) does tend to get a bit repetitive towards the end. 

Regardless, songs like ‘(Sic)’, ‘Wait and Bleed’, ‘Surfacing’, ‘Eyeless’ and ‘Spit It Out’ still hold up well today. While the band would go on to release better albums, this was still a pivotal moment in nu metal history, especially if you were a kid growing up during that era. It feels like a lifetime ago that Slipknot were the “heaviest band in the world”, but this is angry, angst-ridden nostalgia at its finest. 

Before the turn of the century, Nu Metal was only beginning to get its feet wet. Bands like Korn, Deftones and the like were taking alternative metal and making it darker; lots of heavier grooves, harsher vocals and typically immature subject matter. At the time of the self titled debut, Slipknot were a novelty and were considered too heavy for nu metal. And for a group that consisted of nine unique contributors, this could only be viewed at the time as a novelty. And going back and listening to the self titled album once again, over twenty years later after the passing of drummer Joey Jordison (RIP) that my suspicions remain fully intact. This album is absolutely a product of its time and I find it not a surprise as to why so many (pre-)teens flocked to this record and this band.

It is no surprise to hear the songwriting influence on this album from Korn and their self titled debut. It sounds very rough and unfiltered, the guitars are almost exclusively restrained to chugging groove riffs and power chords, the percussion by Joey Jordison is technically impressive, but sounds like ass when the bass drum is as close to the front of the mix, while the tinny snare is compressed. Now this may be due to Slipknot having three distinct percussionists and together they make the snare drums sound like trash...literally. The gang vocals add some much needed force to these songs, but feel overbearing, as do the sampling and turntables. It all just comes together to form the equivalent of musical mush.

This album has nothing outside of its texture of loud, angry and hateful that makes any of its songs stand out. The only song that has some sort of a cooldown is "Spit it Out", but the compression throughout just sounds awful. Corey Taylor's screaming vocals are overbearing, and the sung vocals are hilariously bad, with the rap vocals being not much better. This may be a controversial hot take, but I much prefer the earlier Stone Sour albums from '02 and '06 to early Slipknot. It's hard to believe that Corey Taylor was in his late twenties when this debut was recorded, because it sounds like an album that could have been made by a thirteen year old who didn't get his allowance money this week. Not a good debut by any stretch and it's quite surprising to see so many people give this record, much like Korn's debut, a free pass.