REVIEW: Korn, Issues (Epic)
- Mike Pfeiffer
For the past few years my brother has been trying to make a Korn fan out of me. He's constantly sending me tapes packed with Korn songs insisting that lead singer Jonathan Davis is the voice for today's angry, rebellious youth. But, being more from the generation of 80's new wave, I'm not so impressed with most of today's alternative metal.
At first, I despised the Korn songs barely making it through a track. But, eventually, they began to grow on me. Their twisted guitar rhythms and Davis' gutteral, out-of-pitch vocals have even started to appeal to me. With their latest release Issues I found myself looking forward to hearing the entire record.
Issues begins with Korn playing melodically; "Dead" features bagpipes and Jonathan whispering "All I want is to be happy." With that unlikely phrase, it's obviously a short track that leads into "Falling Away From Me" showing Korn hasn't gone soft, but they have learned a few new tricks.
While Korn may have sounded edgy and jagged in the past, on Issues their sound is confident and oddly comfortable within its own unsettling elements. Davis' vocal is all over the place on every track. He's screeching, whispering, and shouting in the same verse. It wouldn't work for anybody else, but for Korn it's perfect. One element notably absent from Issues is the hip hop beats. Most of the tracks flow along a hip metal pace that only hints at funk. This would be a disappointment, but Korn plays it so tight, it's okay that the funk has fallen to the wayside - leaving powerful chords and hard rhythms to take over.
Overall, Issues is not only a good release for Korn fans, it's a good release anybody with a little pent up aggression willing to give this harder edged music a chance.
