A heavy metal band making a dubstep album? Who’d have thought it? OK, so by now – unless you’ve been living on a desert island for the past year – you’re probably more than aware that Korn’s latest album ‘The Path of Totality’, which was released earlier this month, has taken the band in the largely-unexpected direction of dubstep. Not that they’ve abandoned their nu-metal origins completely, but it’s fair to say that this latest move by the Californian rockers may have come as a bit of a shock to some.
For their tenth album release, Korn were never likely to let us down by bringing out anything simple and predictable, let’s face it. But this latest foray into the realms of electronic music may have come as something of a surprise to even their most dedicated followers. However, according to frontman Jonathan Davis, in a recent interview with Billboard, ‘The Path of Totality’ hasn’t come entirely out of the blue: “We were dubstep before there was dubstep. Tempos at 140 with half-time drums, huge bassed-out riffs. We used to bring out 120 subwoofers and line them across the whole front of the stage, 60 subs per side. We were all about the bass.”
Another important point to note is that, despite more than a shadow of a doubt from various critics and even some old-school Korn fans, the response to ‘The Path of Totality’ since its recent release has been far from a complete disaster, even earning the band a number of praising reviews. Of course, if they were going to do a dubstep album, it seems that Korn have certainly gone the right way about it, getting the likes of Grammy-nominated producer Skrillex onboard to assist. In addition to being a renowned up-and-coming dubstep artist, Skrillex – aka Sonny Moore – is no stranger to rock, having previously been the lead singer with post-hardcore band From First to Last.
In the same Billboard interview, Davis confirmed that Korn’s younger fans have really taken to the band’s new sound, but that the old school are not so easily convinced: “These kids are onto something completely innovative and new. It's pure and awesome and underground and heavy and different, not like stale-ass metal and rock'n'roll. I love them all, but the old-school metalheads are not open to change.”
Maybe it’s the sight of glow sticks that is putting them off. Glow sticks at a Korn gig? Apparently so: “It's really cool to see glow sticks at the show, to see dance music culture infiltrating and becoming one with the metal community.” Hmmm… Convinced? We’ll leave it to you to decide when the band bring ‘The Path of Totality’ over to the UK and Ireland in March.
Regardless of what your opinion is on dubstep and other electronic music, there’s no denying that there’s still plenty of the old Korn that we know and love on ‘The Path of Totality’. Or as Jonathan Davis recently put it: “We didn’t make a dubstep album. We made a Korn album.”
However, if the new album isn’t really your thing, don’t forget that Korn still have another nine albums and seventeen years in their back catalogue and no doubt they’ll be bringing plenty of that along with them in March. Are you ready?
Sun March 25th 2012 - O2 Academy Brixton, London
Mon March 26th 2012 - O2 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham
Wed March 28th 2012 - Manchester Academy 1, Manchester
Thu March 29th 2012 - O2 Academy Glasgow, Glasgow
Tue April 3rd 2012 - O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol
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