Like Kiss, The Residents and the Covered Man (spoiler: it was David Soul) before them, Slipknot built their image on no one being able to see their faces. While Kiss were glorified pantomime dames, The Residents were committed avantgardists and the Covered Man was plain daft, Slipknot’s use of masks was, frankly, disquieting in the extreme.

To push their new single, ‘Unsainted’, they have decided to let fans join in with the face-covering hi-jinks by plonking a virtual mask on themselves through the Facebook Camera on their phones.

There are 10 different masks to choose from – one each for nine different members of the band plus an extra one. Once you are happy with the way the mask sits on your face, you can take a shot of it and share it to your news feed or your Stories on Facebook. Videos get ‘Unsainted’ as the soundtrack before being shared.

It was created by Firepit (with Warner Music UK) for WMG and Roadrunner US, with the band’s management also being involved in its development.

“The band’s visual call-out is their masks; they change them on every album and are very discrete on their reveals,” Francesca Gaymor from Firepit Technology told Music Ally. “It’s more than just the music these days. Fans are wanting more from the artist and are looking for a more immersive listening experience. With AR technology, it does just that, it allows the artist to reach out and interact with you on a much deeper level.”

This is not a new idea, with face filters providing much of the appeal on an app like Snapchat. And yet, when considering just how much the band and their image connect with their fans, this is one of the better uses of this technology. None of this is played for laughs or for “the cute factor” and it’s the – let’s be honest – terrifying results that makes this all work as well as it does.