Earlier this year, Slipknot fans were shocked when frontman Corey Taylor took off his mask and made a reunion album with his old Iowa bar band, Stone Sour. But what really stunned them was Stone Sour’s breakthrough hit, "Bother," a chilling pop ballad featuring the renowned screamer on guitar and vocals accompanied only by a swooning string section. Like all of Taylor’s best work, the song’s about death and remorse, but who would have expected this guy to go unplugged?

The rest of Stone Sour’s first album falls somewhere between the Slipknot and "Bother" extremes: it’s a dirty, self-lacerating metal disc that replaces the lust for speed and noise that preoccupies Slipknot with an outstanding batch of brooding hooks. Taylor unleashes all of his abrasive vocal tics on the opening "Get Inside," which finds him at his paranoid best as a lyricist. The band, whose line-up includes Slipknot guitarist James Root, aren’t as overpowering as their masked benefactors, but they have plenty of fun with the material’s hick-metal clichés. The last trick up Taylor’s sleeve is the anti-establishment spoken-word rant "Omega," which brings the album to a fittingly experimental close.

(Stone Sour perform on Tuesday December 3 at Avalon; call 617-423-NEXT.)