Ah yes, Nu Metal. Mixing the instrumentation of Heavy Metal, along with the stylings & beats of Rap/Hip Hop, this creates an interesting style of metal music, and has spawned numerous bands that take up it’s flag. Some of these bands have fallen by the wayside, some remain in a strange kind of Limbo, while a select few still stand with us today. With that said, lets take a look at Korn’s first offering of the new millennium, Untouchables. Let the review begin!
Background
Untouchables marks an interesting period for Korn. Their previous release, Issues, was a big hit, but there were some problems. There were issues between the band members, drug problems were getting worse, and they were drifting away from the genre that many say they invented (More on this in a bit). They went to Scottsdale, Arizona to write the songs in a more peaceful environment, but went back to L.A. to record the album, where there was still some hostility. Untouchables was released on June 11, 2002, and managed to sell 434,000 copies in its first week, but didn’t manage to surpass The Eminem Show, which was released just a couple days earlier. The band put the blame on internet piracy, due to an unmastered edition getting leaked just 3 months earlier.
Untouchables went Platinum on July 11, 2002. As of January 4, 2013, the album sold over 2,400,000 copies in the US, and over 5 million copies worldwide. Critic gave Untouchables positive reviews, and is often considered to be one of the best albums that Korn has ever put out.
Basic Description
In a word......Bipolar.
Like I was saying earlier, Korn was drifting away from Nu Metal, the genre that many believe they founded. For whatever reason they didn’t want to be associated with Nu Metal, and thus decided to go for a more experimental direction. I don’t mind experimental, as singer & bands that specialize in the subgenre can create some truly unique sounds, and Korn is definitely a part of this. The problem, however, is that they don’t seem to fully embrace this experimental route. There are some songs on Untouchables that sound as if their were taken from their Follow The Leader/Issues period, and are directly transplanted into this album. Other songs, however, sound as if they come from some album in the future. This creates a rather strange listening experience, as the space between an older-sounding song and a newer-sounding song can be quite short.
Best Songs
The best songs of Untouchables are the three singles of the album. These songs seem to have the greatest amount of effort put into them. Instrumentation, Vocals, and the overall production value appears to be concentrated the most in these three.
The first of these is Here To Stay. Here To Stay closely matches the music that is found on Follow The Leader & Issues: There’s still plenty of a Nu Metal vibe going on, but there’s sequences where the Experimental side of the band comes through (Mainly in the instrumentation, especially with the guitars). Johnathan Davis brings a voice that’s forceful & potent, but it’s not so loud that it overshadows the instrumentation, or overwhelms the mood.
Here To Stay
The second best song on the album is Thoughtless. It’s apparent that Thoughtless mainly sticks with the experimental route. That’s a very futuristic sound coming from the guitars at certain points, and the vocals are distorted (Also at certain points) to sound like an evil entity’s voice echoing from a tunnel. With that said, the drumming sounds disjointed, and the overall pacing feels rather sludgy. On a more personal note, this song made me feel a little uncomfortable. I felt a lot of hate & bloodlust coming from this tune, and it didn’t help matters that the video furthered this.
Thoughtless
This ties into the last song of this trio, Alone I Break. There is hate & bloodlust in this song also, but it feels like it’s reflected inward, rather than being projected outward. This is especially true, when you consider what Jonathan Davis said about this song in interviews back in 2001/2002:
"I wrote that song in my house, before I put the studio in there. I had the drumming down, and Munky came in and laid some guitars over it, and it became this great song. It's one of my favorite songs that we've done. It's very different from what we're used to doing, and it really hits home. It was one of those moments when I was very depressed...That whole time around Untouchables, everybody in the band was going through all this bad stuff. And I was just feelin' it, so I wrote this song about being alone and breaking down, and not feeling like a man's supposed to feel. You're supposed to be tough and take all these problems. So I'm basically saying, 'Does it make me not a man if I'm upset about stuff?'"
"I wrote it when I was going through a rough time. And it's basically a song about checking out. About things getting so bad that you don't want to be here anymore."
Alone I Break is also the more interesting of this musical trio, and perhaps of Untouchables itself. The song acts as a bridge between the band’s original Nu Metal stylings, and their later Experimental Metal attitude. The instrumentation (For the most part) seems to be coming from their late 90s work, but the sound effects being used, and the overall vibe of the song, comes across as being incredibly experimental. Despite this dual identity, the two sides meld rather well, as neither style overpowers the other. An interesting piece, if you ask me.
Alone I Break
Worst Songs
If the previous three songs were the best, then just about everything else on Untouchables is bad. Well, that’s not exactly true. The rest of the album is something of a mixed bag: there are songs that sound great (Such as Embrace & No One’s There), songs that sound bleh (Make Believe is a big example of this), and then there are songs that are just meh (Pretty much everything else). This is rather tragic, as I thought that the production value across all of music, even the “Bleh” songs, is top notch. That said, you might be flipping through songs, depending on how patient you are for good tunes.
Overall Impression & Rating
I can understand why Untouchables is praised. There’s good production, the songs are great, and it marks a change for Korn. For me, I definitely enjoy it. It’s not necessarily one of their best, due to it’s problems, but it is certainly not an unbearable experience. The best songs are top notch, and even some of the worst songs are more mediocre than bad. If you’re a Korn fan, you’ll certainly want to pick this up if you’ve never listened to it. If you are interested in the band, then this is an intriguing album to start at.
Untouchables gets a 7 to 7.5 out of 10
Well, this is now things are gonna go on the Heavy Metal Otaku blog. I hope you like what I’ve put up so far, and please leave some comments. See you soon!
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