If you were to time-warp back to 2001 and tell people that Slipknot will create one of the most vulnerable and evocative ballads in metal, they’d laugh in your face. The Nine rocketed to prominence around the new millennium by being the angriest band of the nu metal takeover: their music was extreme, their live shows anarchic and their appearance deliberately shit-your-pants terrifying. However, continued relevance requires musical evolution – and that’s precisely what the Des Moines renegades underwent as the noughties resumed.
After putting the metal world on notice with their furious debut then doubling down on Iowa (still the angriest album to top the UK charts), Slipknot grew beyond unfettered rage. Members took breaks from the 18-armed wrecking machine in less destructive side-projects and/or got clean from substances. When they regrouped to make 2004’s Vol. 3, they craved acoustic guitars, bigger singalongs and a more colourful emotional palette. That pursuit then reached its apex four years later, with the creation of the band’s softest and most emotionally exposed song: Snuff.
