A Sneak Peek...
On July 13, 2010 "Korn's" ninth album... or actually their III was released !!
This is an album that if you asked Jonathan Davis he would have given it up, he even called it a "mistake", why? You're asking yourself, so we'll explain right away...
But first let us share that the recordings for the album began by the four members of the band after a break of almost a year in which they did not touch anything related to Korn, but focused on other projects. Let us remind you that they stayed three members after "Head" left the band four years earlier, and drummer David Silveria left three years earlier. Davis, James Shaffer, and Reginald Arvizu decided to add drummer Ray Luzier as a permanent member (he was the drummer on tour), and even shared his work on the album.
(Photo: houseofblues.com)
The band members decided they wanted to go back to their roots and enlisted producer Ross Robinson. The three members besides Davis worked on materials separately and recorded several demos, with Davis himself coming to the recordings without anything ready and in the process of recording demos for 11 songs. He said it was the first time everyone had worked together on all the songs. Usually, the rest of the band would finish recording the songs, and only then would Davis go in to write lyrics.
So you asked why this was a mistake...
Let’s start with the fact that producer Ross has taken the issue of back to roots one step (or several) too far. While they wanted to go back to using only the base of rock, with drums guitars, and vocals, with no electronic elements or atmospheric sounds, Ross put them in a small studio, closed them every day for a few hours, and told them, to play! Davis said that Ross had a method of getting all the anger and aggression out of them, but it no longer suited where they were. They were already adults, experienced, and no longer children who do not know what they are doing.
Davis came to the recordings of the album with the attitude that it was going to be a concept album and in terms of lyrics he wanted to base it on five recurring elements and tell a story. But because of the form of work in which all the band members worked together under Ross' pressure, he simply improvised the lyrics throughout all the recordings of the album. He felt this was the way it worked for him and he adopted it throughout all the songs, even though in retrospect he wanted to record a concept album, as mentioned.
This is why the name of the album is "Korn III", only at a later stage, just before its end, the title Remember Who You Are was added. As for the band and also Ross himself, who produced the band's first two albums, this is a return to the period of the late nineties. Even the recordings were made by a 24-channel analog tape and not by the famous Pro Tools software. Although the previous album and the pre-album tour, the band financed itself without a record company, this time too they thought about it but finally decided to release the album through the record company Road Runner, they did not have the time or ability to deal with anything related to the business side, The logistics, and marketing of the album.
The album received quite cool reactions from critics, but also from fans, and although it reached number one on the Billboard 200, it is not an album to be framed or hung with dignity, it may even be an album to be shelved...
Why should we decide for you, listen by yourself on: Spotify, Apple Music