I remember listening to Slipknot's debut album when I started getting into heavy metal music. At the time, their blend of aggression, angst, downtuned guitars and weird samples were just what a tender sixteen year old with thin skin needed to get through the injustices of life - uncomprehending parents, merciless teachers and unfathomable girls. 1999 was a long time ago. Now, halfway through 2010, I decided to give the album another try. What would my more mature ears (and brain) hear? The end result is surprisingly pleasing - if a little embarrassing.

As their career progressed, Slipknot would improve and develop their sound, but Slipknot captures them in their raging, primal element. There's no subtlety at work here. From the get-go, it's about fast tempos, crushing riffs, demented drumming and Corey Taylor's tortured screams that would inspire a legion of wannabes. His vocals command the most attention on this album, and that's saying something, given the two guitars, three percussionists, one bassist, one turntablist and one sampler. His performance on Slipknot won't win him any (serious) Best Vocalist awards, but his ability to switch between clean vocals and furious screaming ("Eyeless") is something more established metal vocalists could take an interest in.

The inane, teenage lyrics (which sounded so good when I was sixteen, and now make me blush) are a letdown - there are only so many ways you can tell the world to fornicate itself, and Taylor uses all of them ("Surfacing"). This is Slipknot, so maybe my standards shouldn't have been higher. Thinking man's metal, this is not.

Whether it's "metal" or not is a debate for Internet chat room purists, but you can't deny that Slipknot turned everything up to 11 on this album. The guitars are happy providing enough mayhem in the background (no guitar solos for Jim Root or Mick Thomson yet), but the real revelation is Joey Jordison's drumming. I am, at best, only a casual Slipknot fan, but the man is a hell of a drummer. Slipknot's music is one-way traffic, but Jordison makes it a hell of a ride.

The standout track is their classic "Wait And Bleed", where all the aforementioned elements come together. The rest of the album doesn't hold up as well, the other songs melting into a background of samples, screaming, percussion noises and KoRn-influenced guitar riffs. It's forgivable - Slipknot were in their infancy in 1999, and there have been worse debut albums.

While Slipknot may not be as fine-tuned as other albums in the heavy metal spectrum, there is something undeniably catchy with Slipknot's approach. Maybe it's the nostalgia evoked from days of coming home from rough days at school, putting this on and imagining the world didn't exist, or maybe it's fun to take a step back and listen to music that is hard to take too seriously. Add a healthy grain of salt, and Slipknot is a decently enjoyable album - or a guilty pleasure. Maybe even both. 4.0/5