First up is JoFo, who gave it a rating of 

Honestly, Head leaving the band because he became a Christian just never made a lick of sense to me. I don't know of a single Bible verse that orders new converts to quit their jobs & instead occupy themselves with issuing silly press releases & jaunting around the world snapping up orphans as fast as they go on sale. However, after listening to this CD, I now realize the real reason he left the band. It had nothing to do with his new religion, but instead, I suspect he didn't want to be dragged down in the whirlpool of the sinking wreckage that was Korn. After months of pictures spamming message boards of Snoop holding a Korn guitar ("What the heck is this thing & which way does it go?") & the acrimonious Head split & the head splitting whining about it from both sides, the Korn Publicity Machine successfully cranked up interest in their new sound. Sadly, buzz generated from hype rarely turns out to be anything noteworthy, or of any substance, as I was quickly reminded after one ok song & 18 lame to mediocre ones. Don'tcha just hate that when you buy a CD & this is the outcome? Don'tcha also just hate when you are cruising along, and all of the sudden, traffic comes to a standstill? Finally, when you manage to creep up far enough to see the car crash, your rubbernecking curiosity pays off big, like when there are bodies & blood & weeping relatives. Sometimes. Far more often & annoying is when the source of the bottleneck turns out to be someone with a flat tire or too much junk piled too high in their rickety pickup truck necessitating a 30 MPH rate of speed. The fun of screaming past hurling epithets quickly fades as you realize with annoyance that now 85 minutes of your life are gone, all because of some idiot hauling his year's supply of scrap metal to the junk dealer. This album can be charitably described as kinda like that. 

On this CD, they attempt to be a 'crossover' band. I think they are trying to either become big dance music stars or adult contemporary artists, it was hard to tell. A coupla songs on this sounded like Robert Plant solo project rejects. Rife on this release are borrowed riffs from old Metallica, old Korn & even recycled riffs from songs on this CD! I guess their few years of taking it easy & only applying themselves to generating interest on the internet has taken their toll. They sound fat & lazy & disinterested, something Metallica can relate to, as they excitedly welcome Korn to join them in their lonely mountain retreat of irrelevance.

Jon D. alternates between singing songs about how his life still sucks, songs about how everybody still hates & misunderstands him, songs about how he still never gets anything he likes in life & songs about how his parents still suck. Nice to know that success hasn't changed him. I guess he & Michael Jackson alone carry the Peter Pan virus, resulting in a failure to age or mature. He also includes an anti- politics song on here, which actually managed to rival the entire Korn library for lyrical stupidity Rather than this song bolstering their claim that they are trendy hipsters leading the pack of impressionable little dance kids, they come across as far too craven to express an opinion either way. In spite of all the sameness on here, there is a major difference on this album: bagpipes have a much more prominent role. Bagpipes. That should be a joke, but no, JD is intent upon showing off his 'skill' on the most comical instrument ever invented. This would have been hysterically laughable if I wasn't already so annoyed by the dragging pace of most of the songs on this release. 

I think Korn has bought into the unofficial military motto 'the bigger the screw up, the shinier the medal'. In keeping with this absurd reality, they take the worst, slowest, lamest dance music fodder on this entire CD & redo it twice on the bonus CD. All I can say about the various "Twisted Transistor "versions is 1) Rob Zombie does this type of music better, don't bother, Korn; & 2) am I alone in wishing Dante Ross would quit remixing stuff & just go away & get a different line of work? That guy can turn even decent songs into something no one should listen to. At least this song didn't start out good, or I'd be furious. If Korn wants to trick people into buying this CD, thinking it sounds kinda like old Korn, they should float "Eaten up Inside" on various Clear Channel stations, that'll fool people into thinking Korn has survived the Head defection & still sounds ok. But Korn apparently is not interested in maintaining their old fan base, or else they would have done more than include a token song on here that's mildly reminiscent of the old days & stuffed over an hour of junk into their rickety little band to waste your life on. 

Even if all the mean titled songs on here are pointed references to their former BFF ("Liar", "Hypocrites", etc), the internet battle was far more entertaining & less sad & pathetic as far as car wrecks go. 

Next up is antiGUY, who gave it a rating of 

Most people are shocked to learn that I've always liked Korn. Even before they were known as Korn, a buddy of mine turned me on to a LAPD demo. They would later lead the charge of nu-metal and as originators stood ahead of the pack that tried so hard to copy them. I never jumped on the backlash bandwagon, I like what I like and make no apologies for it and while Korn were never among my favorite groups I won't switch them off if they come on and I'll occasionally pop in a CD and get my fill. That being said, I'm torn about this CD because it marks a pretty drastic change for the band and while some of it works well, other parts fail miserably. But I will hand it to the band for trying to evolve musically instead of resting on their laurels and rehashing their last few albums. The big problem here is they somewhat rehash songs within this disc and the evolution seems to be more about radio airplay then growing as musicians and songwriters.

The strengths: Headcase is not really missed; the riffing here is pretty solid, although not earth shattering. They do build some good grooves up but it gets somewhat repetitive as the disc moves along. 

The minus: For the most part Jonathan delivers big vocals that grab your attention but with the lack of solid hooks, that attention isn't held for long. The big irony there is that the band went out of their way for the "hits" by co-writing with the overrated "matrix" team. It was a wasted effort as the songwriting was much stronger on Take a Look in the Mirror. This isn't exactly Metallica Load territory but the change towards the mainstream is pretty close. 

I give Korn credit for trying to take a new direction. Although I probably would have been happier if they had picked up where Take a Look in the Mirror left off, this is a decent effort for the band and may open some doors for them but on the other hand may alienate some older fans. 

A few words about the deluxe edition. I have to hand it to Virgin on the packaging, the Alice in Wonderland meets Hellraiser artwork is an attention grabber and the foldout sleeve is a nice touch. I thought from looking at this that it might be a concept album, but sadly I couldn't find a concept besides Korn trying to prove they can take it to "another" level. The bonus disc contains some cool videos and I'm biased here as I fricken hate "remixes" with a passion, so the semi-disco treatment of "Twisted Translator" didn't translate for me. Maybe they owed Dante Ross money? That's the only excuse I could figure out for putting that on here. The live video version of the song comes off better but it's still one of the weakest Korn tracks to date. "Hypocrites" live in Moscow is much better and ends the bonus on a high note. If you ignore the banal lyrics, it's actually a pretty solid song. 

So there you have it, the other side of Korn. Is it a better side? We'll have to wait and see the general consensus on that but for me; I would have rather seen a slightly evolved version of the original side of Korn. My advice to Jonathan and the guys; drop Avril's songwriters next time and give us what we know you are capable of.

Korn - See You on the Other Side
Label:Virgin

Preview and Purchase This CD Online

Visit the official homepage
 

More articles for this artist