KORN Untitled (2007)
18 September 2007
We all know who Korn are. With each record in a row - from the self-titled debut 14 years ago to the current untitled eighth album - they prove they are not on top by accident. The music of the Bakersfield guys is always changing, but it keeps the specific signature with which we’re used to associate the short name of the band. Well, now we are talking about darkness.
The new CD continues from where the absolute 2005 masterpiece “See You on the Other Side” ended. From its themes and melodies Korn have now synthesized the common atmosphere of condemnation and enforced it with the industrial sounding, strongly covered in the previous album.
Again the producer is Atticus Ross, but this time he has built the sound by himself and redone the work by The Matrix in the very beginning of the recording process. The result is total lack of any positive emotions in the songs and not accidental associations with the music of Nine Inch Nails (especially in “Love and Luxury”) and even of The Cure (“Do What They Say”). Even potential hits in the record like “Evolution” are rather melodically packed fear than radio-friendly singles… and the programming and the various industrial noises add a shade of psychedelic grotesque to the typical Korn rhythm in the songs.
Another important moment of the recordings of “Untitled” is the absence of one more member of the original line-up of the band. For the second time in the career of Korn, David Silveria took a long vacation, this time devoting to family duties and private business. His place in the studio has been taken by the current drummer of Bad Religion, Brooke Wackerman, and Terry Bozzio, even though the participation of the legendary musician is more of a wise PR move than a real musical need, because (except in “I Will Protect You”) you won’t hear technical drumming in the CD.
“Untitled” is an atmospheric album of hypnotic visions and dark hopelessness. Of unnamed horror incubated in the soul, of scared animal grotesque staggering in the corridors of madness. Is it fine? Even more - it has impact.
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- 1The Emptiness Machine
LINKIN PARK - 2A Fragile Thing
THE CURE - 3The Piper's Call
DAVID GILMOUR - 4Queen of What Might Have Been
EAGLE POST - 5New Waters
ODD CREW
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