Pull the CD out of its sleeve, and you see a picture of a shattered window with a spray-painted graffiti warning next to it that reads, "Don't use: Broken."

If there's one word that sums up this masked metal mob from Des Moines, Iowa, broken is it.

But as any good forensic investigator knows, the jagged remains of something that's shattered provide telling clues about the whole. In Slipknot's case, some of those razor-sharp remnants are exactly what we'd expect to find: self-loathing, simmering rage and nihilistic hopelessness.

Scattered amid those larger shards, however, are some surprising (if significantly smaller) fragments that periodically reveal insights about our culture ... and what's really going on underneath this band's macabre masks.

Untangling a 'Knot
Des Moines might seem an unlikely incubator for one of the fiercest acts on today's metal scene. But to hear these guys talk, the relative isolation of Iowa's capital city is partially responsible for their gruesome identities. The band's core coalesced in 1995 as Slipknot worked on an album-length demo, Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. At practice one day late in 1995, Shawn Crahan (one of the band's three percussionists) showed up wearing a clown mask.

That gimmick became the band's visual trademark, one that symbolically represented the rejection Slipknot had experienced. "We never put the s--- on to try to get people into us," insists drummer Joey Jordison. "We did it because, after being degraded constantly for trying to play music or do something in Des Moines, it just came out to be like we were an anonymous entity. ... No one cared, so we were never about our names or our faces; we're just about music." Still, Jordison said, grim visages do say something:

"The masks are an extension of our personalities. Everybody's got a sort of tweaked, demented way about themselves, and we just alter the masks over time."

By 1998, Slipknot had solidified its nine-member roster, with growler Corey Taylor (recruited from rival Des Moines band Stone Sour) leading the masked posse. The 'Knot's self-titled debut landed a year later. A combination of pummeling thrash fused with nu-metal elements such as samples and spoken phrases, 1999's Slipknot connected with a rabid fan base, eventually selling 2 million copies. Two years later, devotees snatched up a million copies of Iowa.

Perfect Dark
Looking at even a small sampling of lyrics from those first two albums, you quickly discover that Slipknot hates itself ... and you. It's probably impossible to isolate a single song that sums up this ongoing degeneration. But "I Am Hated" gets the job done pretty effectively: "My life was always s---/And I don't think I need this anymore/I am hated/You are hated/We are hated/Eveything sucks ... /Everyone dies/ ... We want you dead."

Given such surroundings, it's hardly a surprise that Taylor did indeed contemplate ending it all after Iowa's release. "I tried to jump off the balcony of the 8th floor of the Hyatt on Sunset [Boulevard] on Nov. 14, 2003," he told MTV News. Somehow, [my wife, Scarlett] stopped me. It wasn't the first time I tried to kill myself, either."

Taylor credits that moment with spurring him to be honest about his alcoholism and to quit drinking: "I took a good, long look in the mirror and hated what I saw. ... I came to the realization that I'm more interested in doing good than bad. I'm more interested in helping people. And that was a big step."

Progressive Regression
What Taylor labels a big step might more accurately be described as incremental progress when it came to Slipknot's next two projects. Amid the rage and self-loathing of 2004's Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor asks, "Who am I? And where am I going?/Maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction." Similar windows of self-awareness and cultural insight turn up on the band's latest, All Hope Is Gone (which debuted at No. 1). The album's opener, ".execute," takes our culture to task for paying too much attention to insubstantial things ("A fanatical devotion to that which does not matter"). And "Sulfur" rightly notes that life will reveal our true allegiances ("You don't always know where you stand/'Til you know that you won't run away").

But questions will only take you so far. Ultimately, how a band answers those questions is the truer test of wisdom—or progress. And how does the 'Knot answer its own questions? With unmitigated nihilism.

Even though he died almost 40 years before Slipknot first donned their masks, 20th century existentialist Albert Camus was eerily prescient when it came to describing what the effects of this hopeless perspective would look like in action. "[Nihilism represents] a metaphysical collapse," he wrote, "characterized by profound hatred, pathological destruction and incalculable death."

He could hardly have described Slipknot better if he'd attended one of its concerts. The band itself spells out its dark worldview this way on All Hope Is Gone: "The ending's the same/The world will not change/The answer is clear/Annihilation/ ... Obliteration/ ... Live forever? Well, I would rather die."

Rebellion Romanticized
The problem with nihilism is that it's an unsustainable way of life. You either continue to embrace it and die, or you leave it behind and find something worth living for.

Taylor has indicated that he's on the latter path. And in a recent interview, Crahan, too, has voiced his weariness with the band and his desire to give his life to something more significant. "I'd love to be doing anything other than Slipknot right now," Crahan told Britain's Kerrang! magazine. "I've never wanted to be around my family as much as I want to be around them right now. My wife [who was diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 2001] is in the best health she's been in for a long while, and I'm really enjoying watching my kids grow up."

The distance between these musicians' real lives and values and what they represent in their songs is therefore significant. They may sing about razing cities—"Get out of the way or you will suffer/ ... We will burn your cities down," Taylor screams on "Gematria (The Killing Name)"—but at the end of the day some of them just want to go home to those they love.

That means their fascination with nihilism is little more than a morbid fantasy. It's certainly not the end-all-be-all their music makes their fans think it is. Taylor and Crahan, at least, are beginning to realize they can't actually live by the angry screeds they deliver. What Slipknot really offers, then, is a romanticized version of nihilism—packaged for the masses to sell CDs and digital downloads.

In this sense, the 'Knot really isn't all that far removed from original shock rocker Alice Cooper, who for years has staged shows featuring "executions" and "decapitations." Cooper's latest, Along Came a Spider, spends 10 of 11 songs gruesomely describing a serial killer's favored methods of dismemberment. But Cooper, aka Vincent Fournier, says he became a Christian years ago and often talks about his faith.

Just like the men of Slipknot, he wants to have it both ways. But he can't. And they can't.

The Consequence of Ideas
For some fans, the ideas in Slipknot's songs are more than mere emotional outlets. They're powerful suggestions.

On Aug. 18, 2008, Morne Harmse, 18, stabbed four people with a samurai sword at a high school outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, killing one 16-year-old boy. The attacker, who's reportedly obsessed with the band, wore a mask similar to that of Slipknot's Jordison. After several days of silence following the murder, Taylor told Blender magazine:

"Obviously, I'm disturbed by the fact that people were hurt and somebody died. As far as my responsibility for that goes, it stops there, because I know our message is actually very positive. I used to sweat it really hard. But the thing you have to realize is the fact that I'm not encouraging anybody to kill anybody. I encourage our fans to express themselves, to stick together and to help each other. ... At the end of the day, there are always going to be mental disorders and people who cause violence for no other reason than the fact that they're f---ed up and lost. And all we can do is try to learn from it."

In what universe could Slipknot's lyrics be construed as positive? And when Taylor sings, "Give me a bullet, and I'll change your life," how can those words be interpreted as anything other than an endorsement of violence?

Ideas have consequences. It means something to stand in the pulpit of popular music and teach fanatical followers that whatever the question is, violence is the answer. Just as philanthropy and goodwill can change the world, so can self-destructive messages and ill will.

I think there have been enough clues on the last two 'Knot albums to let us conclude that these guys know, somewhere deep down inside, that their nihilistic worldview doesn't work. But fully embracing that truth would require dropping their violent, rage-filled masks. And that's something they're apparently unwilling to do—regardless of the cost to those who listen to them.