### Korn: See you on the other side

#### 03/04/06 || Statik Majik

Reviewing anything Korn-related is like covering every inch of your body with honey and then sit down in an anthilll. At first it might tickle a bit, but pretty soon comes the pain. In other words, that’s not recommended, not even for your worst enemy.

You see, if I write something positive about Korn, all the fucking “trve” metal heads start giving me shit. And god forbid if I would hate the album, then I’d be harassed by gazillion of angry pimplefaces who claim that I’m just too old to understand that Korn reflects their deepest emotions and stuff. They’ve had a hard life, and Korn brings relief to it. Or wait a minute, I might be talking about Nightfish fans here when I think about it… Nah, they’re gathering magic dust in the enchanted forest while still trying to get over the fact that Lord K said something bad about their favourite band.

Who gives a fuck anyway?

Fortunately we have the hatemail-section to deal with people who don’t understand that a review is just an opinion amongst others. Yes, opinions are like assholes, we all have one but for some reason we tend to think that it’s not ours that stinks.

Well, mine stinks. Even more than yours.

So, the disc at hand, “See you on the other side”... I have to admit that I actually bought this without hearing a single tune from it first. Why not? I’m stubborn like most of the Metallica fans have been since 1991. No matter how much they suck, people still buy their shit just for the possibility that maybe this one would be the glorious return to their non-sucking era. I gave up on Metallica long ago, but I haven’t given up on Korn. Not yet.

The album artwork looks fucking nice and at least I thought that if the cover looks this good, the album can’t suck… At least not too much. Well, I have to say that this definitely ain’t a step back to the old days. Nothing even remotely as impressive here like on their debut or “Follow the leader” (which I consider to be the best of Korn anyway), nope. But in all honesty, I didn’t even expect it to be. The thing is, even if they decided to distance themselves from their earlier (and better) direction with the “Issues” album, they didn’t start composing totally crappy tunes. More radiofriendly? Maybe. Different? Yeah, absolutely. Worse? Not necessarily. I thought that “Issues” was actually damn good release. Well, I admit that “Untouchables” was “just” a pretty decent one, but on the other hand I did enjoy “Take a look in the mirror”. Alot even.

One thing that’s usually guaranteed with bands that have money is that their albums tend to have a really good production (except for Metallica). Well, the production on “See you on the other side” is fucken top notch. I think their producer put some extra hours for low frequencies in order to make this fucker sound a bit heavier, because the music sure as hell itself doesn’t give an impression of the really heavy shit Korn used to play. And for some reason Jonathan’s performance here sounds a bit tired. Like he’s not willing to give his best anymore. Don’t get me wrong, he stills sounds like himself but there’s not a single bit of anger in his performance this time around.

Is this metal? The fuck I know… Most of the time it’s just… well, the Korn we’ve used to hear for the last 7 years or so. It ain’t groundbreaking in any ways but it’s entertaining to say the least. It’s good and yes, on a few occasions it even sounds heavy. And it’s better than anything they released after “Issues”. And that’s enough for me.

7/10.

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: EMI
- Website: www.korn.com
- Band
- Jonathan Davis: vocals, bagpipes
- James Shaffer: guitars
- Fieldy: bass
- David Silvera: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Twisted transistor
- 02. Politix
- 03. Hypocrites
- 04. Souvenir of sadness
- 05. 10 or a 2-Way
- 06. Throw me away
- 07. Love song
- 08. Open up
- 09. Coming undone
- 10. Getting off
- 11. Liar
- 12. For no one
- 13. Interlude/I’ve seen it all
- 14. Tearjerker