Slipknot -- Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)

9/10

I don't normally like to quote Wikipedia when I can't click on a link to see the truth of its references, but this bit of information it lists as coming from Slipknot founder/percussionist, Shawn Crahan,  from Kerrang's July 2012 issue seems so in line with how I've always felt about Slipknot's first three albums, I have to include it here.

""The first album was a lot of fun. The second album felt like we were saying, 'Fuck you, we're dying here.' And then the third record was the healing process."

While I enjoy the majority of Slipknot's music, the one album of their's I have a close personal connection to is their third, 2004's Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses). 2004 was a healing time for me, as well, and that summer, I felt like a lot of the heavy bands I enjoyed were going through the same process, at least in their music. Demon Hunter, certainly the closest band to Slipknot in musical vibe (I wish they'd tour together one day!), released Summer of Darkness, which, taken with Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), is a great one-two punch. Another favorite of mine, though not quite as grisly as the other duo I've mentioned, Project 86, released Songs to Burn Your Bridges By,  an album which might as well be an exorcism.
The reason for this vibe during that particular summer makes sense. The great national pain of 9/11 was finally starting to fade just a bit. Personally, I thought that a lot of the music released in 2002 and 2003 seemed a little more angsty than usual. Sure, you'd expect Radiohead to put out a depressing album, but P.O.D.? Even the three bands that I started with were putting out downer albums. Project 86's Truthless Heroes is a major downer. Demon Hunter's self-titled debut is fun, but it ain't uplifting. Sure, Slipknot's Iowa beat 9/11 by a couple of weeks, but you wouldn't know it from how absolutely defeated it is. Maybe this also reflects all of these bands I've listed's life stage. Confusing mid-20's, after achieving sudden success. Whatever the case, I was right there with them.
My life had tossed me an incredible amount of curveballs to the point that I had contorted myself into an untenable mental position. The result, as I've talked about in these reviews, was a 9-month long migraine. The last few months of the migraine, when it finally began to break, happened in the summer of 2004, just in time for Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses), released May 25 of that year, and just three weeks after Summer of Darkness and one week before Songs to Burn Your Bridges By.
I can thank two factors for awakening my Slipknot fandom. The first is my good buddy, Daniel, who wore a Slipknot shirt at least once a week, and slowly convinced me to look past the masks (ironically, I love the masks now). The second is that I had recently moved back into my parent's house for my last semesters of college, and my room at their house now had cable. One of those cable channels was Fuse. Fuse showed the video for Vol. 3's "Duality" one afternoon, when I was writhing in migraine pain.
The song begins with vocalist, Corey Taylor, intoning I push my fingers into my eyes/it's the only thing that slowly stops the ache.
"Hey, I said," removing my fingers from my eyes so that I could see the television screen. "That's what I'm doing right now!"
Following the narrative of the video, I then said, "Hey, all those people running into and destroying that house are like this migraine, and my head is like that house."
The true nature of Slipknot is greatly exemplified by the "Duality" video. This music doesn't exist so some innocent little angel, flying around being perfect, can suddenly discover Slipknot and become corrupted. This music exists so that people in pain, who have experienced ugliness, can have some catharsis. Check the moment two-minutes in where Taylor embraces a fan (everyone in the video is a fan who responded to an open invitation for the video shoot) by holding the back of his head and pressing their foreheads together. Does that look like a guy, mask and all, who is singing to people he hates?
As much as Vol. 3's music, favoring more traditional song structures and as much singing as screaming, marks a shift in the band's sound, its lyrics and Taylor's performance marks a shift in the frontman's perspective. During the album's creation, Taylor decided to get sober, and his lyrics, which could essentially be summed up before as, "I hate you, and I hope you die, and I hope I die, too," are far more self-reflective and meditative--he even goes profanity free here, to force himself to be more creative. However, there's also a new outward lyrical focus, which feels like a bit of a revelation for Taylor. While there are certainly large pockets of people who hate him and his band, there are also millions of hurting kids who are looking up to him. "Pulse of the Maggots" contains highly empathetic lyrics that before this point would be unthinkable in Slipknot's oeuvre, "I can't walk alone any longer/I fight for the ones who can't fight/and if I lose, at least I tried." That's uh...that's not exactly nihilistic.
Musically, Vol. 3 is grindy metal, sometimes giving way to singing, with more experimental and atmospheric sections accenting the rest of the album's heaviness. There are some catchy choruses, but they don't rule the day. There is a thrilling feeling of unpredictability throughout, exemplified by the second track, "The Blister Exists," which goes from a building intro, to a thrashy section, to a chaotic verse, to volcanic pre-chorus, to a thrilling, heavy, but sung circular chorus, to a stunning, extended percussion breakdown, before ramping back into the rest of the song.

Every one of the band's nine members gets a chance to shine in "The Blister Exists"'s pulverizing five minutes, and the album's only just begun. The most remarkable aspect of Vol. 3 is that it's almost able to sustain that feeling over the entirety of its 14-track, hour-long runtime. Sure, there are short moments where the album lags momentum. In particular, "The Virus of Life," 13-tracks in, drags a bit, and I have always found my attention slipping during that portion of the album, before the gentle, thoughtful closer, "Danger -- Keep Away."
However, consistency is the rule on Vol. 3, punctuated by stunning moment after stunning moment, like the acoustic buzz of "Circle," (which really gives me a great 2004 vibe, chilling in my room with my migraine fading, and watching The Shield, the greatest television show of all time, and hanging out with Daniel and our great pal Jonathan, truly a dynamic trio friendship relationship that I've sadly never experienced again in the same capacity, and going to Cortana Mall solo when I'd get out of class and off my student worker job to the mall, wandering around there, buying used PS1 games like Final Fantasy IX from Electronics Boutique, going to Wal-Mart and buying a thousand of the Merlin's chocolate "king cake" rings they had left over and discounted to $1, along with a combo of fritos and chili-cheese dip and a cherry coke to take my meds with...sorry for the digression), and the mounting emotional eruptions of "Vermillion," which to this day I think is one of the greatest songs I have ever heard.
In fact, I think so much of "Vermillion," that I'll mercifully end this review with a dissection of it.
"Vermillion" begins with a keyboard line that sounds like a wind-chime through the amber-stained glass of a nightmare. The song then builds up martially to Corey Taylor's menacingly whispered voice, as he describes some maddening object of desire. At first glance, this object, referred to as "she," seems like a woman. This builds to Corey belting out, then bellowing the final words of the first verse, before a staggering drum and percussion fill, and the second verse begins. The second verse is then blindsided by a soaring, yet violent pre-chorus, with lyrics that reflect on how the vocalist found himself in this position. A suddenly determined chorus repeats the line "I won't let this build up inside of me!" This is followed by a bridge and guitar solo that bring to mind, for lack of better imagery, a wrestling match to the death in a muddy rainstorm. Then Corey comes back for the second pre-chorus, with lyrics different from the first, including the final line "I'm a slave, and I am a master/No restraints and unchecked collectors/I exist through my need to self-oblige/She is something in me that I despise." This for me, takes the song into loftier thematic territory, as the "she" referenced seems to be any deep personal struggle, temptation, or addiction, particularly ones which cause us to attempt to live in a false reality. Personally, I found it quite easy to attach the migraine-causing mental patterns that I was self-harming with to these lyrics. After a second pained, but equally determined chorus, the song ends with a tsunamic circular rhythm (there is a musical theme of circles here...and hey, even a song on Vol. 3 is named after that shape!), buoying up Taylor's repeated, first throat-shreddingly screamed, then sung mantra of "She isn't real/I can't make her real," before a zen like chime closes out the song.
No. She definitely isn't real.


2004 Roadrunner Records
1. Prelude 3.0 3:57
2. The Blister Exists 5:19
3. Three Nil 4:48
4. Duality 4:12
5. Opium of the People 3:12
6. Circle 4:23
7. Welcome 3:15
8. Vermilion 5:16
9. Pulse of the Maggots 4:19
10. Before I Forget 4:38
11. Vermilion Pt. 2 3:44
12. The Nameless 4:28
13. The Virus of Life 5:25
14. Danger – Keep Away 3:13