Style

Slipknot has an extreme performance style provided by their massive line-up featuring a typical heavily downtuned guitar setup (lead, rhythm, and bass guitars), two percussionists in addition to the primary drummer, and electronics (samplers and turntables). Robert Cherry of Rolling Stone compared the band's sound to "a threshing machine devouring a military drum corps."
Their early work hosted a large range of vocal styles, ranging from rapping to occasional singing to grindcore-esque growling. Death metal growls can also be included. In more recent work, this vocal style remains present, but now includes more melodic singing. The lyrics generally follow a very aggressive tone, "[are] not generally quotable on a family website", and feature themes such as darkness, nihilism, anger, disaffection, love, Misanthropy and psychosis.