Dogmatic

I gotta tell you - I love Slipknot. Take away all the chaos, the masks, the gimmicks and you have a damn fine band and a band offering something new to the world of Metal and harder edged music. I mean, can you name me any other Metal act that is a nine-piece and/or features percussionists as part of their repetoire? And besides, the band’s last album ‘Volume 3: The Subliminal Verses’ is an absolute classic slab of modern and innovative Metal music.

But behind the mystery and the masked faces, lies an incredibly volatile and intense band that has managed to survive with no line-up changes in close to a decade. Quite an accomplishment with a nine-piece outfit.

‘Voliminal: Inside the Nine’ is Slipknot’s ambitious new DVD shot by percussionist M. Shawn Crahan, a.k.a. Clown. Crahan trawled through over 300 tapes culling snippets of mayhem from Slipknot’s monumental album and tour of the last couple of years. I can only begin to imagine how draining and exhaustive such a project would be to undertake but when all is said and done, it’s all rather slapstick, somewhat disjointed and comes no where near in capturing the underbelly of what it must be like to be in Slipknot. I would have loved to have seen more footage from the making of the ‘Subliminal Verses’ album than the monotony of on-stage snippets present here. Director Crahan should have taken inspiration from Trent Reznor and how he did this sort of (warts and all) project. Nine Inch Nail’s ‘Closure’ takes the correct approach in presenting an expose of life on the road and comes across as disturbing and morose. Slipknot’s take is rather mundane and even childish in places - and that left me feeling rather disappointed in what was a highly anticipated release by yours truly. I mean, a constant theme throughout is a flooded-toilet. Whoopee Doo!

The second disc on the other hand I really sunk my teeth into. Featuring nine individual and very revealing interviews with each member of the band… literally - behind the mask! The interviews are nicely shot and directed and really probe the psyche of each of the Slipknot dudes. Very interesting that they allowed themselves to be interviewed without their masks as Slipknot have borrowed from 70’s era KISS and up until now never allow themselves to be seen without their masks. I found the interviews fascinating and they certainly gave me more of an insight into this beast called Slipknot more than the ramblings of disc 1.

All in all, it is a great release - but comes no where near the pre-release hype that surrounded it. Slipknot have a habit of releasing quality product no matter what - but I just can’t help but feel disappointed with the main feature on show.

Disc I

Disc II