Slipknot are certainly one of the bigger stories of metal in the past 20 years or so. Coming from the small state of Iowa to emerge as one of the most popular and meteoric metal bands of 1999, to improving and diversifying their sound to reach a wider audience – without losing sight of who they were – was certainly impressive as well. While other bands of the era either broke up or stagnated to the point of commercial and critical relative failures, Slipknot seemingly couldn’t stop growing larger. And while their 3rd album, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses might not be quite revered as their self-titled debut and maybe even Iowa, it’s still an impressive experience on its own – expanding their songwriting and genre palette is why they’re one of the biggest headlining metal bands on the planet right now.
You really have to admire Slipknot’s growing songwriting ambitions, even if you don’t like the direction they’ve gone recently. Could you imagine an atmospheric acoustic piece like “Circle” or even “Vermillion Pt. 2” being on Iowa, let alone their debut? Probably not. Listeners were greeted to these two songs, and for many it felt like a massive splash of cold water to the face. This is a band who wrote songs with great ferocity and violence like “Surfacing”, so it’s tough to imagine a band this heavy writing tracks like those. Interestingly enough, Corey Taylor did say that “Circle” was written while on the road during 2001 – so perhaps the signs were there all along hinting of a future directional shift.
There are genuine hooks here even on the heavy tracks, especially single “Duality”. Corey Taylor’s vocals are incredibly developed here, powering through a fantastic and shocking melodic chorus that just wouldn’t have been as powerful as on their previous 2 albums. That’s not to say the album isn’t heavy, though. Proper opening track “The Blister Exists” (the “Prelude 3.0” actual intro is an important segue, too) is an all-out metal assault that genuinely urges the listener to bounce and also bang their heads, while being one of the most impressive drum and percussion performances ever delivered from Slipknot. You can also say the same about the subsequent track “Three Nil”, which simply explodes into an impressive caterwaul of metallic noise in its last 30 seconds.
So, the album isn’t necessarily perfect. Tracks like “Opium Of The People” and “The Virus Of Life” occasionally suffer from a confusing direction at times, or sound similar and indistinct of other tracks on the album. That’s very minor gripes, though. While some tend to confuse a more melodic direction with the definition of going “soft”, that isn’t really the case here. Lyrically, the band really steps it up here, not needing to use excess profanity (or any, actually, outside of a couple instances) to get their point across.
If you really re-examine the band’s career to that date upon release in 2004 and compare it to the material that came before and after, you’re likely to draw a similar conclusion – that this album was what was destined to make Slipknot a metal household name for at least the next 10+ years to date. Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) was that answer, and a more in-depth listen to the album reveals just how important it was to their development. And you know what? It might just be their most impressive album to date.
