(Immortal/Epic)
Few albums in recent memory have been as brutal as Korn's 1994 self-titled debut. Oh sure, many albums have come out with some guy screaming about how evil the world is and how it has done him so wrong, but rarely has an album full of so much personal rage been released.
Now, two years later, Korn returns with Life Is Peachy. And once again, the overriding theme of the album isn't the injustices of the world, but deep-seeded personal anguish. The omnipresent theme on the debut was one of innocence lost and a childhood torn apart by abuse of all sorts, and that theme is present here again on Life Is Peachy. "Kill You", about vocalist Jonathan Davis' step-mother will remind listeners of "Daddy" from the first album - only this time around, Davis makes no illusions about his intentions.
But this time around, the theme may have run its course. "Mr. Rogers" seems labored in its attempt to blame childhood tragedy on everyone's favorite neighbor, and although "Kill You" is one of the more brutal songs I've personally ever heard, it doesn't pack the punch that "Daddy" or "Faget" did from the first album.
Korn's best moments on Life Is Peachy is when they address other issues, such as drug use on "Swallow", or when they lighten up on songs like "A.D.I.D.A.S." (an acronym for "All Day I Dream About Sex", for those of you who didn't catch that in junior high) and the incredibly vulgar "K@#o%!".
One of the many things that set Korn's debut apart from other debuts was their raw sound, which hasn't been polished up for Life Is Peachy. Davis' lyrics are still quite incomprehensible at times, and the guitars of Brian Welch and James Shaffer seem to be perpetually on the verge of incredible amounts of feedback - but that's not a bad thing by a long shot. Produced by Ross Robinson, Life Is Peachy features those traits and others (including the punctuating rhythm section of Fieldy and David) that have defined the signature Korn sound.
With their first two albums, Korn have not only charted a new direction for harder rock, but developed one of the most fanatical fan followings in music (for proof, one need to look no further than the numerous Korn-devoted pages on the World Wide Web). Their music is speaking to a group of people who have felt alienated and abused, but one can only hope that there are other voices in Korn's repertoire - and that they find them before they run the one they are using into the ground.
