In a career marked by a series of firsts, KORN have done it again. Got a problem with that? They’ve already revolutionized the heavy genre with their bold, unsettling music that defies categorization and presented it to their fans with unprecedented multi-media events. Now they’ve taken their music to astonishing new heights with SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, their debut album via a partnership with EMI/Virgin Records. It’s a unique alliance that will enable KORN to be even more innovative in the way their music is presented to their fans, who constitute one of the most fiercely loyal followings in all of rock ‘n roll.
Listening to such daring new songs as “Twisted Transistor,” “Politics” and “Love Song,” among others, it’s clear that KORN--JONATHAN DAVIS, JAMES “MUNKY” SHAFFER, FIELDY and DAVID SILVERIA--have opened the doors to even more creativity and disarray. And no one does “disarray” like KORN.
“We were sitting there with one less member, and we decided to check out some other types of producers, experiment, and see what happens,” says DAVIS, referring to the departure of former guitarist Brian “Head” Welch (who left for spiritual reasons), and the band’s ensuing decision to switch things up in the studio following the self-produced release of 2003’s Take A Look In The Mirror. “It just came to the point where we had to reinvent--here we are, the four of us, let’s make some music that’s different, and music that people are going to flip the fuck out over. We can go in so many different directions as a band, why be closed-minded?”
Their decision was anything but closed-minded as KORN--who’ve already sold over 25 million records worldwide and encapsulated their body of work on 2004’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1--entered the studio with a team of producers as different as night and day. The one constant is DAVIS. He handled the majority of the production on the band’s last album, and remains a producer on SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, joining forces with The Matrix and Atticus Ross. “We knew we wanted to experiment and see what would happen, but we had no clue it would end up like this,” laughs DAVIS. “It really worked out—we may have lost a member, but we gained another two with Atticus and Matrix.”
The result is the most revolutionary KORN album since their debut, a barb-wired, bastard son of blinding musical fury, dark and twisted lyrical candor, and searing, sociopathic tendencies. It’s the culmination of everything KORN have come to represent musically, morphed with an industrial-strength alter ego that’s been suppressed—until now. SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE is more than the evolution of KORN, it’s an evolution of heavy. “There needs to be something more,” says DAVIS. “A lot of people are doing ‘heavy,’ and they’re doing it great, but we’ve always been about pushing the levels and coming up with some new shit. We ushered in a genre of music, and now we’re trying to stay ahead of that curve. This isn’t minimalist, old-school KORN--this is a natural progression for us, and we’re kicking it up a notch.”
Kicking it up a notch, with pulverizing effect. A hybrid funk and medicating, metallic shimmer radiates from opening track “Twisted Transistor,” steamrolling into the abrasive guitar attack of “Politics,” the industrial textures of “Throw Me,” and the military precision of the anthemic “Coming Undone.” While “Eaten Up Inside” and “Getting Off” don’t stray far from the decimated path KORN have left in their wake, the true gems are found in their more forward-thrusting manipulations. While DAVIS notes that “Love Song” is a song sure to impress “all my depressed, goth peeps out there,” his delivery is more in the style of David Bowie, than death metal Bauhaus.
“When we listen to what we’re doing and look at each other with scared, fucked up feelings in our guts, that’s when we know we wrote something special,” says the singer. “That’s how we know we’re breaking down the boundaries and doing some new shit, because we’re scared
