ARTIST: Korn
ALBUM TITLE: Korn III: Remember Who You Are
RECORD LABEL: Roadrunner Records
RELEASED: July 13

By Eric Stuckart
Creator, Destroyer

The last decade and change has not been the kindest to a band like Korn. The Bakersfield, California group has watched their audience dwindled over the years as the nü metal boom went kaput, and fair-weather listeners went the way of the buffalo.

Add to that the drama of one founding member leaving the band to become a Born Again Christian and another to go on hiatus from the band to become a restauranteur, and it just couldn’t get worse, or could it? That, my friends, is hard to tell. Considering the fact that their past two albums, See You on the Other Side and their untitled album, found the band resorting to working with pop hitmakers The Matrix, known for creating hits from such artistes as Britney, Avril and Xtina, among others. Granted, they ended up scrapping the work the Matrix did on the untitled album, the fact that they were scraping the bottom enough to turn to that is quite telling.

Enter III: Remember Who You Are, whose title is laughable for three reasons. One might scoff at the hilarity of a band titling their ninth studio album III, as well as the fact that this is the third incarnation of the band now. Having finally accepted the fact that drummer David Silveria was in fact not returned, they have taken hired gun Ray Luzier into the fold as a permanent member. Even more ironic, Korn doesn’t even sound like they remember who they are, or who they were, for that matter.

So where does III fall? Somewhere between forgettable and better than that song they did with Limp Bizkit back in ’98. The band have reenlisted producer Ross Robinson to try and light a fire under their collective asses, and the results are clearly mixed. Some of the material sounds like B sides off of Issues, and some of it sounds like rough demo cuts, like “Lead the Parade”, one of the absolutely worst Korn songs I have ever heard.

The album was said to be recorded with no Pro-Tools or editing or multilayering, and perhaps they should have rethought that approach. There’s nothing wrong with going back to a ‘heavy’ sound, but most of the songs here lack the memorability of even forgettable latter day singles like “Twisted Transistor”. The mix is muddy compared to even their first, self-titled album, and most of the songs find the band struggling to really lock into any sort of groove.

Ironically enough, singer Jonathan Davis sounds more reenergized than he has in years, but the rest of the band sounds like they’re phoning it in for the most part. But ultimately, putting an image on the cover that evokes memories of a band’s past endeavors and saying you’re going back to your roots doesn’t count for much if the songs aren’t there to back it up. Especially when songs from their lesser albums turn up being more memorable than anything off of their ‘back to basics’ album.

RATING: 4/10

Front page photo from facebook.com.