Educating Omand - Slipknot

In an effort to further her musical education, Susan Omand has been set "homework" of listening to albums released after the 1980s that she has missed out on. This time she faces her arch nemesis and says Welcome to Our Neighborhood...



Slipknot.



The very name sends a shiver down my back and not (knot?) in a good way. For me, Slipknot has become antithesis of… well, everything really. I have a stereotype of them in my head; scary masks, scary videos, scary moshpits, scary music (if you can call it music). I don’t like them. However, I signed up to do this list on a “no matter what” basis and am open to trying anything once (usual caveats apply) so I set forth with Welcome To Our Neighborhood…



… or at least I tried to. WTF is a video album when it’s at home?! Even my streaming service threw up a little bit trying to find it and I have now to delete my entire search history to stop every second track suggestion being one of theirs. But find it I did, eventually.



While there are only 4 music tracks on the album (apparently only 3 on the original VHS with Scissors being an added extra), there is also some actually quite interesting interview and documentary home video footage on the background to the band and why they exist.



Having thought about it and watched the video through once, it seems to be the visuals that cause a lot of my problems with Slipknot. Watching the band really does make me feel physically nauseous so, in order to give the music the benefit of the doubt, I went audio only for a second play through.



The music is more interesting than I gave it credit for when you take the fear out of it. I wasn’t expecting the scratch DJ in the middle of Surfing, Spit It Out is more melodic in bits than I thought and the lyrics of Scissors (the track added for the DVD) are at least sometimes intelligible. If I had to pick a “favourite” (in the loosest sense) from the four tracks it would be Wait and Bleed. It has a more noticeable grunge influence to the sound and showcases Corey Taylor’s vocals a LOT better than any of the other tracks.



The masks still creep me out though so I’ll stay uneducated this time, thank you very much.

Image - Amazon