The doom and gloom of Slipknot's music has a powerful pull on today's youth. Still, the success of the band, one of underground metal's biggest acts, doesn't appear to be enough to guarantee a sellout tour for one of its spinoffs.

        Stone Sour played Bogart's Tuesday night to a less-than-half-full cro wd. After a few warm-up shows in September, the Cincinnati date was the band's first of a headlining tour with Chevelle and Cinch supporting.

        The quintet is led by Slipknot singer Corey Taylor and also features Slipknot's James Root on guitar. Although Slipknot's shadow looms over them, it might not be altogether accurate to call Stone Sour a spinoff, because the band started in 1992, five ye ars before Mr. Taylor joined Slipknot.

        Whatever the case, Mr. Taylor seemed unfazed by the relatively small turnout. He addressed it several times while putting on a high-energy performance worthy of a Riverbend sellout.

        “Are you sure there's only 450 in this place tonight?” asked Mr. Taylor as cigarette lighters flickered and the crowd sang the words to “Bother,” a song that appears on the Spiderman soundtrack album.

        That was the night's one quiet performance, with Mr. Taylor singing the ballad accompanied only by his electric guitar.

        The rest of the night was loud and heavy. A couple of songs were on par with Slipknot material, but most stuff was a few notches lighter, which is still deep within the confines of metal.

        Stone Sour was shelved after Mr. Taylor and Mr. Root took up with Slipknot in the late '90s. But the group reunited two years ago and released a self-titled album a month ago.

        Most of the songs played in the 65-minute performance came from the album.

        Stone Sour didn't wear scary Slipknot-style masks, and their music was more melodic than Slipknot's.

        But those parent-hating teenagers who make up a chunk of the Slipknot fan demographic would have delighted in the musical fury of such songs as “Get Inside,” “Idle Hands” and especially the show-closing “Tumult.”

        The melodic songs showed Mr. Taylor might be trying to reach a broader audience. So did the choice of Chevelle to open.

        The Chicago trio of brothers Pete, Sam and Joe Loeffler fits big metal riffs into little pop songs and has been receiving airplay on MTV.

        E-mail cvarias@enquirer.com

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