Future Of The Left are one of those rare bands that my friends are into that I can also get into. I'm a stubborn fucking dickhead, so when someone tells me to listen to something, I usually don't. So, the fact that I love this album is nothing short of a total miracle, but the love comes in heaps, and for good reason. I initially gave the whole thing a chance on the strength of "Beneath The Waves An Ocean", which has a bass riff dirtier than a Tory politician rolling in a mud pit at Reading Festival.
The whole thing is a bizarre mix of indie-style rock wrenched into odd time signatures and filtered through a scuzzy lens. I guess it's kinda like feeding The Strokes into a meat grinder whilst listening to John Zorn's Naked City, or something like that. "Goals In Slow Motion" is one of my favourite songs here; and if not more straight-forward than a lot of the tracks (think REM meets Green Day, seeing as we are on the subject of ridiculous comparisons), it does however possess a bangin' chorus hook which more than makes up for it. Church.
I guess this is probably one thing you wouldn't have expected me to cover, but I was chatting recently with LIW regular contributor Burra on many things musical, and somehow, somewhere along the highway HIM came up. Burra raised the quite valid point that Razorblade Romance was a solid album in any respect, and I had to agree with him, regardless of the band that released it, or what they would become. It is eternally bizarre to think that HIM started out as a Black Sabbath tribute band (I for one cannot image them playing any Sabbath tracks), as that would be far cry from the pop-dressed-as-metal that we have here.
But, if you're gonna do something, do it right. You have to understand here that this thing came out before HIM had any real international recognition; before Bam Margera forced this band into the playlist of every male with a beanie hat and a Jackass DVD; and most definitely before Ville Valo was wetting up goth teen panties on the other side of the pond. On top that, this thing isn't going to win any awards for originality. The same lame-ass fucking drum beat carries every song, as does the muted chugging of the guitar riffs, which is used so often in verse structure that Mushroomhead started to draft up a cease and desist order. It's almost offensive to musicians worldwide how simple this shit is.
But it works. Throw in some lazy but effective keyboard playing to fill out the middle-ground and you've got the perfect backdrop for the man himself; His Infernal Majesty, Ville Valo. You gotta admit this guy has some pipes on him, and without a doubt helped carried this band to it's success. This thing is loaded with hits that could easily top charts if backed with sickly electronica instead of distorted guitars; "Poison Girl", "Right Here In These Arms", and the, I gotta be honest, absolutely fucking fantastic cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game".
This is one of the closest instances where metal almost became pop music (anyone who raises me that fucking farce Babymetal loses 9000 internet points - that shit is a product, nothing more).
HIM Trivia: The song "Join Me In Death" was blamed for a fan suicide and was re-titled "Join Me" for a while to avoid any further controversy. It now seems to be back as the original title, even on the band's Vevo. Also, the band are supposed to go by the name HER in America, kinda like how Ghost is supposed to go as Ghost B.C. but never do.
Yo dawg, we heard you liked Korn so we made you a Korn to release after your Korn (but not before the other Korn). Who's putting out all this Korn you ask? Well, fucking Korn, of course. I mean, how much Korn could a Korn fan konsume, if a Korn fan could konsume Korn? Korn obviously don't think that kontinuing to kall albums Korn, even though they already have records kalled Korn - now totalling three Korns - is konfusing. But, for me, as far as Korn are concerned, in regards to Korn, Korn and the third (and thus-far final) Korn, Korn finally have enoughs Korns recorded. This here retrospective review is about Korn's second album kalled Korn, ingeniously entitled Korn. To konfuse things further, this record is sometimes referred to as Untitled, although it is in fact, titled Korn. Hopefully that has cleared that up.
I hope that the above enormous paragraph of wanton shit talking has given you a brief idea of how much I am struggling to write anything of any worth about this particular Korn album (the second Korn album to be kalled Korn). Take A Look In The Mirror and See You On The Other Side saw the band reigning in their sound a bit, and Korn (the second Korn) furthers this trend, with the band seemingly becoming nothing more than a studio project with session musicians at this point. The lead single, "Evolution", whilst not a bad tune, is just krap to be honest, in the way that if that's the best this record can offer for a lead single, then we are pretty much fucked.
Check out one of the odd decent tunes on this forgettable part of Korn's discography:
