10 Classic Music Albums That Will Make You Love Nu Metal

By the time that Slipknot had reached the top of the charts, no one was really looking to them to be a gateway band. From the masks that they donned onstage to the intense live show and the rapidly screamed vocals from Corey Taylor, this was nu metal on hard mode and something that you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. A funny thing ended up happening along the way though: they managed to find their niche in rock and roll as well.

Going into the studio with Rick Rubin, Vol. III is an amalgamation of Slipknot flirting with a little bit more melody than we were used to. Coming from the same guys who made something like Disasterpiece, you can hear them reaching for something a bit more mellow in places, like when they break out the acoustics on the song Circle or go into full ballad territory with songs like the Vermilion sequence, where Taylor tells a dark story of a man who has a figure of a woman trapped inside of his own mind.

This is one of the perfect bridges to the heavier side of the spectrum though, where Taylor works some of his screams into the singles like Duality while also giving us some surprises like the Blister Exists, which seems to be your traditional nu metal banger with bits and pieces of Nine Inch Nails thrown into the mix. There's still more than enough chaos on this record...it's just a little bit more focused this time around.