Down to three members after the recent departure of drummer David Silveria, nu-metal pioneers Korn haven’t missed a beat, returning with their eighth studio album in 13 years and continuing down the muddled path they started on with 2005’s See You on the Other Side. Although pop producing team The Matrix is behind the boards on only four tracks this time out, they’ve got co-writing credits on nearly every song, and the emphasis on electronic elements and melody over heavy guitars and screaming continues over from Other Side.
Singer Jonathan Davis slips back a bit into his old angst-ridden mode, and none of the songs exactly sound like radio-friendly hits in the making, but that doesn’t mean that the band has recaptured the intensity of its early years. When Davis finally lets loose with some growling on late-album track “Killing,” it just sounds tired and rote.
Elsewhere, the overpowering keyboards and drum loops conspire to make the band sound like second-rate Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson imitators, and “Bitch We Got a Problem” may be about schizophrenia (or something), but it comes off like a Limp Bizkit song. So fresh when they debuted back in 1994, Korn now sound lost, searching hopelessly for an exciting new sound that they continually fail to locate.
KORN
Untitled
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