Korn's taken a lot of flack over the years in the metal world. Though the band basically started the whole "nu-metal" sub-genre, after a few years of incorporating electronics, rap, hip-hop, and funk into their music, the band lost a great deal of their core fans who craved for the heavier material of their first few albums. With guitarist Head leaving the band recently, the assumption that the best days of Korn were in the past, and a return to heavier material was simply not going to happen. Well, vocalist Jonathan Davis, guitarist Munky, bassist Fieldy, and drummer David Silveria are back with a new album, See You On the Other Side, a pretty raucous, catchy, and ambitious affair that, while perhaps not a return to darker and heavier material, still packs a punch, and delivers some of the bands most adventurous and experimental sounds to date.
Throughout most of their career, Korn never really sounded too "normal" or mainstream, as their sound has always been littered with thick downtuned guitar riffs, pounding and funky bass grooves, loads of keyboard blips and bleeps, frantic drums, and Davis' variety of shouts, whines, bellows, and narrations. See You On the Other Side is no exception, yet the crushing guitar attack is toned down just a tad, perhaps due to Munky being all on his own now, and there is a greater emphasis on Fieldy's distorted bass as well as samples and electronics, giving the music an almost Nine Inch Nails meets Faith No More feel in spots. Of course, there are plenty of rampaging Korn rockers here, like the thick wall of metal sound on "10 Or A 2 Way", the catchy pop-metal "Twisted Transistor", the grinding "Politics", and the funk-meets-hip hop-meets-metal of "Hypocrites". Jonathan Davis sounds better than ever here from a purely melodic standpoint, relying less on screams and gutteral rants and more on his unique clean vocal style. Check him out on the impressive "Throw Me Away", a Nine Inch Nails influenced industrial rocker, or the addicting pop of "Open Up", which has a memorable chorus and deep funk bass lines. There's plenty of metal thunder here as well, like on the doomy "Coming Undone", the downtuned riff-o-rama of "Getting Off", featuring a mix of clean and growled vocals from Davis, and the shuffling frenzy of "Liar". The mix of spacey keyboard programming and dark guitar riffs add an interesting element to "Seen It All", and "Tearjerker" has an almost early 70's prog rock feel to it with gentle electric piano and soft, spoken vocals, which then gives way to thunderous guitar waves and jagged lead passages, before Davis brings everything back to a whisper alongside the gentle drums of Silveria.
While Korn's days of million selling albums and sold out tours might be behind them, based on the results of See You On the Other Side, I think there's still plenty of life left in this influential band. Call them what you will, categorize them however you like to, but there's a lot of good off-the-wall metal on this CD. Give it a try, you might like what you hear.
Track Listing
1. Twisted Transistor
2. Politics
3. Hypocrites
4. Souvenir
5. 10 Or a 2-Way
6. Throw Me Away
7. Love Song
8. Open Up
9. Coming Undone
10. Getting Off
11. Liar
12. For No One
13. Seen It All
14. Tearjerker
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