Photo Credit: Tim Saccenti
Korn could retire right now and have their legacy cemented in metal music for decades and decades to come. Although they hit their peak in the 90s with their brand of nu-metal, which basically took over the world, they are a band that has actively released music throughout the last decade, and a lot of it has been very good.
Of course, while they have experimented (we don’t talk about the dubstep phase), the vast majority of the music they’ve released has been of a high quality. Despite not seeing the numbers and popularity that Follow the Leader, Issues, and their self-titled debut gained, these consistently good albums have cemented Korn’s place as one of the great 21st century metal outfits.
Their last effort, 2019’s The Nothing, was arguably the band’s best work since 2005’s See You On the Other Side, although there is no denying they haven’t done a good job following that up with Requiem.
In typical Korn fashion, they open the album up pretty heavily, with a pretty big chorus of “Bow down” being belted out by singer Jonathan Davis. The backing vocals of “ah, ah” during the verse really makes you question… why? But we aren’t lying when we say Brian Welch has smashed that riff.
In spite of this pretty strong start, what Requiem suffers with is very forgettable tracks. Let The Dark Do The Rest is the beginning of this, and almost the entirety of the second half is the end of it.
Singles Start The Healing and Lost In The Grandeur follow, which definitely feel like the singles of the record. Start The Healing’s chunky nu-metal riff is a solid start, yet the track suffers from a pretty poor chorus, considering the verse builds it up really well.
Lost In The Grandeur features some pretty cool Tom Morello style string scratching in the verses, but in a similar way to the previous track, the song fails to build on the momentum set by the neat guitar work.
Korn have made a career out of being innovative, not afraid of taking risks in their music, and nine times out of ten these risks would pay off. Disconnect’s lacklustre lyrics and delivery are really what you don’t expect from Korn and the chorus is, quite frankly, dull.
The same can be said for Hopeless and Beaten, Penance to Sorrow, and My Confession. It just feels like there is no passion in the music. It feels like someone asked Korn to make an album and they didn’t want to, so they just made one quickly and put it out.
When you get to Worst Is On its Way and see the album is coming to an end, after a mere nine songs and just over half an hour on the clock, you cannot help but feel underwhelmed.
The closing track is better than the previous few, but that’s probably just because of Jonathan Davis’ beatboxing solo. We could easily listen to a whole album of that alone. The rest of the song is, you guessed it, very average.
To be brutally honest, this is one of worst records that Korn have put out. Hopefully Requiem just symbols a blip in Korn’s stellar discography, similar to the one The Path of Totality resembled 11 years ago.
To conclude, Korn are always going to be icons of the metal scene and will always be loved no matter what music they put out, but at the end of the day Requiem is just so unimaginative and mediocre, it’s hard to pick out many positives.
5/10
Standout Tracks: Forgotten, Lost In The Grandeur, Worst Is On Its Way
For Fans Of: Code Orange, Drowning Pool, Conjurer
Written by: Joe Loughran
