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What happened to Nu Metal?

Debates about Nu Metal’s decline do not terminate since a year of 2001 and for all that the phrase mentioning that this particular Nu Metal is already dead always stays a key element of discussions. Meanwhile, the genre as such is still alive and judging by the audience’s interest to the major bands it’s not going anywhere. The groups still sell millions of copies of their albums and tour the planet ceaselessly. Nu Metal is not dead but it has changed just like the way it is commonly treated. It cast excessive pathos off and took its place among other genres but still maintains its up-to-date reputation. And of course all these events reflected in life of everyone’s favorites Korn – the band, which actually started the genre 13 years ago. At a certain moment of time or to be more precise after the release of their album of 2002 Untouchables the interest to the band was gradually decreasing and their new albums were not like a reason for disappointment but still they couldn’t generate the same stir. Luckily it didn’t force Jonathan Davis and company to step on the wrong track and didn’t push the band on the commercial path. Quite on the contrary, all the efforts were devoted to the search of new forms and combinations within the existing Korn style. It took time but in the long run the band won the best result in this complicated process on their new album Untitled.

Korn run to industrial

On a big scale Korn do not alter the basic principle of their music. They keep exploiting wrenching swells and swings, tuned down and enormously heavy guitars and nightmarish atmosphere. However some innovations are evident. Untitled stands as a perfect and improved succession of the band’s recent album See You On The Other Side on which they tried to decorate their songs with different electronic elements. But while these experiments lighten the overall sounding of See You On The Other Side, Untitled offers a version where this traits were brought to reasonable extent thus giving a chance to concentrate on good old sonic aggression. Overall, Untitled sounds heavy, dismal and experimental, for this band’s music at least. The thing is that there is an appreciable influence of Industrial here. However, this thing goes quite well with their style and looks as an appropriate result of flirting with electronic, yet it holds the album’s sounding away from the classic Korn. But there is no need to be worried about that. Untitled became that very album where the band’s stylistic, sonic and songwriting nuances were taken into consideration. It’s not just a good work this is a result of painstaking labor of the band that strives to make something really new but to stay themselves at the same time.

The best Korn’s album in the new century

It is impossible to give one hundred percent promises but there hardly is at list one Korn fan that will take this record negatively. Even those who carefully guards adherence to their early albums will have a chance to make sure that Korn still can make right things when they really want to. Yes, Untitled sounds different from their multi-platinum masterpieces but there is a whole lot of nuggets of its own. After a brief scary intro that consists of the sounds associating with the circus’s backstage, the record explodes with heavy industrial riffing of Starting Over. This is not the most outstanding song here but it is not a filler either. Everything sounds quite familiar: trademark loud bass, powerful guitars and abrupt vocal changes from whispering to insane screams. Then there comes Bitch, We Got A Problem – a track that really deserves attention. It somehow reminds Nine Inch Nails but still has very characteristic Korn’s notes and hooks. The song frequently changes rhythmic and tempo and as a matter of fact has a pretty interesting structure. A track called Killed has turned out to be especially good in this respect. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the heaviest song of the band for the last few years. Overall, Untitled as an album looks very worth-while. It evidently outruns few former releases by the quality of the represented material and even though it still has some specific disadvantages the album stands really close to the status of the best Korn’s album in the new century.