After that, they turned into a big ball of “meh salad” for me. But if this album is as interesting as you say, I’ll have to check it out.

I have not heard the album, so can’t say whether any vocals sound like Devin.

As for Faith No More, I would agree that Epic probably influenced some Nu Metal bands like Korn to do Slap bass, etc. But to say Faith No More is Nu Metal as a blanket statement is way off. Listen to songs on the same album as Epic, like Surprise Your Dead or Wookpecker From Mars. Neither of those are even close to a Nu Metal sound. I think Faith No More is one of the hardest bands to label as a specific genre. Songs like Evidence and Jizzlobber show you the range this band had. I’m praying for a new album now that they are touring together again.

nic nack paddy whack give a dog a bone….. HOLY SHIT, what an abyssmal song.

I’m glad I could stir things up a little–really. The good thing about a well known band like Korn is we all know about them so we can all like/ have a beef about them. Arguments galore!

All that said, this was one of the most interesting and passionate reviews we’ve had on the site for awhile, so thanks for a great read Ian!

Anyway, you’re right: music is subjective, and this is just another discussion. No one’s agreeing with you, but yeah :P

It’s the internet; no argument has been won to date. But kudos for throwing some hard ones without the intent of drawing blood.

Anyway, I did check out the album just because I was curious and thought that, who knows, there might be something good in this after all. Wrong. It’s just the usual boring and sorta obnoxious music I know Korn for.

Now you’re actually comparing Korn to Black Sabbath, Ian. What the hell? You got all the context wrong there (since the very beginning, Sabbath got a lot of crap from people who didn’t even like metal in the first place, but they still had an extremely solid fanbase and a hell of a lot of bands following in their steps by 1979), apart from the very evident fact that Korn has as much revolutionary potential as the Quebec sovereignty movement.

Man, just admit you have a very personal fetish for this band and quit trying to justify it in terms of supposed musical genius.

For five years or so, Sparks were *gods* of glam rock who could pretty much do no wrong. They were favorably compared to The Beatles in terms of the brilliance of their songwriting and arrangements.

Then in 1979 they shacked up with Giorgio Moroder and created ‘Number 1 Song in Heaven’, which was all electronics, early sequencers and the like.

Across the board, without exception, the jury was in: Sparks officially sucked and sucked hard. Audiences (in the US; Europe kinda liked it) hated it. Critics hated it.

Of course, all those electro-pop groups in the 80s, Eurythmics, Yazoo, all that sort of thing, they didn’t much mention Sparks, as ‘Number 1 Song in Heaven’ had created the synth-pop they traded in and now we have Goldfrapp still taking tips from the book Sparks had written, back in 79 when everybody *knew* they sucked, no two ways about it.

It was hilarious, of course, because Sabbath were dinosaur losers whose records were pretentious, silly junk.

Obviously, the 1979 view was kind of wrong.

The thing is, I was really blown away from the recent Rotting Christ record.

When I heard the new Korn record, I basically heard the same basic parts Korn had perfected reused and repurposed on the RC record. I’m sticking to my assertion that Korn created a new syntax of metal that other bands use, just like Black Sabbath created a doom vocabulary a zillion bands use in as many ways.

And as for them just sucking as plain fact I just have to say I’ve been around long enough to see enough bands being viewed as just sucking as plain fact and then magically un-sucking a decade or so later.

Already we’re seeing twenty-something critics looking at nu metal and mumbling that maybe it wasn’t so godawful after all.

Part of it’s like fashion, like the 70s styles that were beyond the pale but are now Williamsburg hipster regulars.

Part of it is time scraping off the extremity of reactions and maybe revealing…I dunno, something interesting.

Anyway, fact is, three tracks from the Korn record are on my frequent-play IPhone list. They really fascinate me. They sound so freaking weird. The rhythms, which you know where time corrected in ProTools, still sound so *off*. The melodies are kind of crazy, kind of obsessive. There’s nothing mechanical, nothing normal about this record.

For me, it’s just the opposite of suck–what can I tell you?

On the critical approach. Genre this and genre that… There is no real need to go and look at a band through any genre goggles or the significance they had back in the day to approach their current music critically. For sure you can possible add more depth and insight to your opinion by doing so, but there is but little reason to dwell in the past if the band has stayed stagnant or has come up with albums that are not pushing any kind of envelope anywhere. It should be in most cases more about the art than the artist, in that I do agree with you. If that was what you wanted argue.

Ian you wrote a somewhat praising review of an new album and people heeded the call and tried to see the reality base of the given review in practice. Many have seem to end up with opposite opinion what was written on your review. Well they might be of base in some cases or just have very different taste than you do, but you should not go and try to undermind responses and opinions by saying that their default preset towards the band is tainting or overshadowing all judgement. It just might be that the music recorded on this album is nothing special or do no good things for the majority that visit here and read this piece.

Anyways it is good that if you really liked this album you chose to write about it the way you felt. In this case I just have to disagree with you.

I recall listening to the first CD once, thinking, OK, this is a total game-changer, being super impressed, but not needing to listen a second time, because it didn’t address my needs as a listener, the needs that go beyond, Whoah, brutal riff.

Critically, I think you approach things in terms of how it relates to its genre, how it relates from its genre to the genres circling it, and how it might effect the needs of its listeners (which I think is where things get really interesting.)

Anyway–don’t all these posts sort of support my basic thesis–that Korn, who inarguably created an *entirely new language of metal*– is HATED for reasons that go beyond mere perceived suckiness? I’d really be interested in why you guys think this is so. It can’t be because Davis is rich and a douchebag. If that were so we’d have to delete 2/3rd of our MPEGs.

I could be 100% wrong about my ideas about why, but is there any other band that could get so many people in such a lather? At the same time that Disturbed, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Nickleback walk the Earth? Bands that truly are useless, market-tested money machines?

It just seemed kinda weird; still does.

Anyways, so I read this review and thought maybe now there is something there and sat through this latest release. And I came to the conclusion that again I found nothing worth my while there. It is another ball drop away from the place they where. So in my books this plead has been heard, noted and denied. Korn is not anymore relevant with this one than with the other stuff they pushed out in “recent years” and they still keep driving their serial killer -collectors cars back and forth the connecting dirt road from Indifferentville to Craptown.

And to add my voice to the choir, I must say that I cannot see, hear or feel any kind of Devin-like vibe from Davis on the mentioned tune what-so-ever, even if I try my hardest with most effective reality altering folio hat on.

How is Faith No More *not* nu Metal circa “Epic”? You got your deep funk groove, your massive guitar, your verse rap, your sing-along chorus. I always thought it was accepted wisdom that “Epic” basically laid the template for nu metal, not that Faith No More didn’t do a zillion other, more interesting things.

But again, *not* comparing Davis to a Devin Townsend song or, God forbid, Strapping Young Lad. Just that his voice morphs into sounding like Devin’s, on one song. That’s all, Okay?

Devin Townsend is in a whole different league than Korn, so I can’t understand where the comparison comes from. Two totally different musical styles. Devin is a mastermind of heavy music. Korn has come out with 1 great debut album, that’s it.

Faith No More is NOT Nu-Metal. This guy needs to get a clue.

Ian – You didn’t need to namedrop respected bands just to prove a point. Pretty cool review anyway.

I think most songs by Anaal Nathrakh with singing in them are much more catchy than anything on this cd.

Sorry but that makes anything you might have to say about Korn a moot point to me.

Devin can sing. Devin can really sing. Devin’s work in Strapping Young Lad also required a great deal of talent to pull off.

I don’t know what you’re hearing. If you want to compare Jonathan Davis’s screaming vocals to someone, Anders Friden from In Flames is a much closer comparison.

Almost unreadable.