Genre : Dubstep, Industrial, Electronica
Label : Roadrunner Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 6.6 / 10
Buy it now
Korn comes your way with a record that aims to invite the iron flavor of - well - metal out of the almost exclusively-industrial sonic domain of dubstep electronica. Drum and base elements and the catchy chorus also is on the list of components you can subject yourself to via this baby, and, frankly, this sounds to be a rather brave release as far as its deviating tendencies from what you "normally" - TUK! - would expect from this band. Deciding that you do not give all too much worry for the matter and will come out with a release you think will BE current and, dare one say, "modern", does not guarantee success on the intent's own merits.
This kind of music Korn puts in front of you in 2011, has been done numerous times already, and not a tad less efficiently, either. Kidney Thieves comes to mind that is a premiere representative of this cyberfry side of music, and that band has been putting out this exact kind of audible mood perpetuation back from the late '90s, and it does. not. sound. any. less. efficient. than Korn's latest. It sounds angrier than this, if anything. Aside from that particular influence, Korn's The Path of Totality evidently seeks to reveal an emotional blend/cohesion between the music of Depeche Mode and The Prodigy, and you can throw some Marilyn Manson on it, too. Track number 7, called "Sanctuary" : Manson-like vocals, meh chorus. The Special Edition features two additional tracks that would have looked way more attentive on the regular edition, - more on this later - because, frankly, the entries of the regular delivery are far less successful tracks than the bonus ones, in my opinion.
Performers of this style usually do not despise the furious tempo, while Korn's The Path of Totality is more of a mid-tempo industrial release with doubtless dubstep character and a risk free accessibility to it. Nothing is too dark, nothing is fast at all, nor is too surprising/shocking on this play-it-safe industrial cyberdubstep release. The general direction is to supply your receptors with acceptable plastic-on-flamethrower-fire music as a base, - exceptional levels of instrumental complexity is an "in your fucking dreams, nerd!" on this LP - then, you will have a melodic chorus with a gloomy character to it, and I'm not happy about the fact that a good dosage of the choruses are sounding like fillers to me. Do not put the cyberjaguar on me yet. There are good moments, too. But great ones : few. The feeling of the music-, of the sonic fabric herein is never so dangerous as you want it to be. To compliment this relative deficit, the feeling of epic gloom - WTF. - is almost exclusive to the release during the choruses, as is a more restrained-, systematically organized mid-tempo pseudo-chaos the record fixatedly seeks to revolve around. The results are mixed. In every sense of the word. Read on to find out more about those.
As noted, the album's musical complexity OR the catchyness factor of its - usually - gloomy hooks hardly are of such elegance or inventiveness that you could bow down to too many of them with an honest expression on the face. (Which would be even harder if the release would have the highly expectable capacity to rip your face off, but, this never happens, I assure you soundly.)
While the release is a passable- , diligently constructed industrial flow with harshly limited cunning to relevantly affect your emotion despite the kinetic sledgehammers it treats you with, exceptional moments, though present, are scarce to greet, and are located on the latter parts of the spin. "Bleeding Out" has this "hey, this kind of has a Faith No More vibe going on!" and the bonus track "Fuels the Comedy" - available on the Special Edition as a BONUS! - has a superb chorus. Ah wait!! Korn's "Fuels the Comedy" is a copy of Faith No More's rendition of Epic, isn't it.
The last track of the Special Edition, with the additional bonus delivery "Tension" also is one of the more tight tracks, though it is having Stone Sour's Cardiff written all over it, so welcome to yet another psychotic breakdown anthem, motherfucker. To be honest, among the "regular edition" tracks, only two did catch my attention right away. Firstly, number 4, "Narcissistic Cannibal" got it - because you think it is about me, but this isn't the only reason I like it - as the track sounds like a Disturbed song in a cyborg disco. The second track I like is about your mom.
In conclusion, know this about Korn's latest : this release is very unlikely to utterly disappoint you in case you think you sport an open mind, because, regardless of its radical tools, it is accessible music at heart, and musically pronounced/expressed angst and intimidating tendencies are not too relevant traits of the fabric. Well, one could say the following : this also is a nice attribute of the spin as whole, because it does not need to rely on fast tempos to be acceptable. But, the other side of the coin is this : if Korn would have given you faster tempos on this LP with THIS set of instruments, then you would have an awful hard time distinguishing this one from standard industrial techno warfare. And no, I do not oppose industrial techno, as there is no kind of music I oppose. All in all, Korn's The Path of Totality is heavily electronica in nature, I dare say that sometimes it invokes 1997 sci-fi computer game vibes, AND the release looks OK as THAT for what the agenda on board is. But, if you are anticipating a metal release, you will be deceived. Korn's latest is not metal in character, nor seeks to be. It's the mid-tempo variant of the music of Kidney Thieves from 1999. And this is a mindhack attempt.
Rating : 6.6 / 10
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