KORN — Korn (review)

KORN — Korn album cover Album · 1994 · Nu Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Unitron
1994 was a strange year for metal, as it wasn't one type of metal's "year" like some years were. Throughout the 80's and early 90's, most genres of metal all had their years to shine. Of course there would always be some great albums from each genre, but many times one style reigned supreme.

I think this is when metal went sort of freestyle, and many bands ended up releasing some of their best and sadly most forgotten albums. A couple of perfect examples being Slayer's Divine Intervention and Helstar's Multiples of Black. Older metal artists had gone to try new things, such as Rob Halford with Fight and his solo material. There were great albums coming out from so many styles, and one band who happened to come around with something new was Korn.

Korn's debut is pretty close to groove metal, and at it's core it is. What I think set the band apart was just how dark it was. However, this isn't just dark for aesthetic reasons like in a gothic or doom metal sense (though I would say there's a doom metal/grunge influence). Korn's debut as well as Issues are legitimately dark. They emit a feeling of being at the lowest point of one's life and being overwhelmed with painful emotions. This reflects all of vocalist Jonathan Davis's pain he went through quite well. The whole album has a low deep sound, with down-tuned guitar crunch, murky bass licks, and frantic drums. Despite the whole thing sounding like this, I think "Predictable" showcases it best with a slow but groovy dirge. The album does have it's variation though. The aforementioned song's bridge melds a grunge sound with atmospherics. "Shoots and Ladders", despite the lyrics just being a weird reciting of nursery rhymes, is among the most unique songs on the album with a pretty great bagpipe intro with the crunching guitars contrasting quite well.

One thing to note is that it can get a bit too disturbing sometimes. I love the song "Ball Tongue", but the sounds of Davis being hit over the heard with a board or something and yelling can make one uncomfortable. "Daddy", taking place as the longest song on the album, is also the most disturbing. I think just the fact that Davis used to cry while performing it explains it all. Black metal bands wish they could make people this uncomfortable.

Say what you will, but Korn's debut was an incredibly unique album at the time. This isn't my favorite Korn album, that would go to Issues, but it's certainly a fantastic album as well and just stands as another example of how varied the metal scene was during the early/mid-90s.
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