After a couple years of relentless touring in support of their self-titled breakthrough album, {$Slipknot} regrouped to record {^Iowa}, an ode to their home state and one that consolidates and punctuates everything that had garnered the band its cultish following. The monstrous guitar crunch, the concrete-dense rhythmic foundation, the frenzied singing, and the overall madcap fashion of it all -- {$Slipknot}'s trademark sound is very much at the forefront of this dark, dark album and is presented in epic form on the extended, album-closing title track, which brings to mind {#Children of the Corn}-type terrors. Though not quite as commercially viable as the more straightforward {^Slipknot} album, {^Iowa} is a more interesting album, one that envelopes you in its American Gothic shadow and leaves you feeling unsettled afterward. It's really all you could ask for in a {$Slipknot} album, and then some -- perhaps some more than you'd like, in fact, if you're not part of the cult. [The Japanese version of {^Iowa} includes bonus material.] ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide