After Issues, Korn decides to go on a three-year hiatus. Not a bad choice, surely, that might give off a signal that Korn was up to something. During this hiatus, frontman Jonathan Davis would aid fellow friend/producer Richard Gibbs with the production of the movie soundtrack and score Queen of the Damned. That adds to the suspense as well, seeing as that Jonathan Davis would have some new ideas to present and add to the band's sound from this past experience of producing an album(or in this case, soundtrack), which in result, would be aimed to expand the band's musical plateau, and create an "album for the ages", if you will. However, the question of whether or not Korn would capitalize on this opportunity still remained. So, would Korn do this? Nope!
In the 2000s, the genre of nu-metal was dying and becoming less popular. You have bands like Disturbed who breakthrough to mainstream popularity with The Sickness, which is nothing more than a disaster, especially when Disturbed tried to test the waters of rap-metal with Droppin' Plates. Then you have bands like Limp Bizkit, with a vocalist that delivers nonsensical and primarily unbearable lyrics that the only thing that keeps them alive are the Jewish wigger fanboys around willing to listen, as they jump around with their skateboards listening to their I-pods, trying to ride down a set of stairs, but bail, as they grab their boards instead, place them on a rail and run down, acting as if they were perfoming a grind.
Point is, bands like these in the early 2000s were responsible for the falling popularity for the nu-metal genre. It's one thing to see a band disgrace a genre, but it's a completely different issue when the band directly responsible for flowering the genre fall flat on their faces and exemplify with only one single album why elitists bag on most nu-metal bands. That's exactly what Korn does here with their fifth album, 2002's Untouchables. Now, as I've stated before, Korn had a huge opportunity awaiting them, since they could have necessarily been planning something big, and Jonathan Davis could have helped to see this through with the new ideas he "gained" from experience with producing first hand. Korn does set it up well, somehow managing to score producer of Soundgarden fame, specifically Superunknown, Michael Beinhorn.
Korn had the lights on bright to make a comeback and show that nu-metal wasn't dead just yet. However, despite having all these opportunities and privileges, Korn lets it go to waste. Guitarists James "Munky" Shaffer and Brian "Head" Welch still provide a rhythmic assault of repeating riffs, but here they have become bland. Munky and Head can solo, as they showed in sophomore effort Life Is Peachy(specifically Porno Creep), but they provide no other displays to verify this skill. Munky and Head also recycle riffs and guitar parts from other tracks on Untouchables, as they did on the very same album where they showed their now wasted soloing abilities, but this time they take it a step further, now using the same one string A riffs in the entire album. Almost every song on Untouchables recycles another in a certain way, such as in certain intros, like Here to Stay and Blame for example. The intros to Here to Stay and Blame are reminiscent to one another, as they both sound the same, with the only difference being the greater tempo in Blame. Bottled Up Inside also recycles riffs from Issues filler Trash. To be simple, the only songs that don't rip off riffs or intros from one song or another are Hollow Life, Alone I Break, and No One's There.
Let's take a look at drummer David Silveria now. David is a wonderful drummer, prime example of his work would be in self-titled single Faget. After taking a close listen to Korn's first two albums, I have concluded that the theory of David Silveria being one of the driving forces behind Korn's success is justifiable. However, what happens here is a complete polar opposite of that theory. In Untouchables, David Silveria's drumming has become simplified, basic, and lazy, now consisting of more cymbal banging than skin pounding. The only time he actually gives good drumming in Untouchables is in Blame, and Blame is the only drumming from Untouchables that I remember the most.
Now we have Jonathan Davis. The man responsible for Korn having the success they've had. Who doesn't remember Jonathan's sweet vulnerability and display of emotions as a human being, as he did in Faget, Daddy, Mr. Rogers, Kill You, just about every song from the first two albums? Well, it's quite nostalgic of Jon to throw that out the window, as he does here in Untouchables. To be simple, Jon tries to pose as a misogynistic man who has literally been through a living hell, trying to make his life seem more disturbing and suckish than it appears, and showing no emotion from it all to sell it. His vocals have now become weak, never showing any vocal power or range, as he did in the bridge of Falling Away From Me from Issues, but with exception to Make Believe, Hollow Life, the bridge in Hating, and No One's There. His lyrics are also nothing special, talking about the same thing over and over again: hatred, hatred, and oh, guess what? MORE HATRED. Furthermore, they are nonsenical and some rehash lyrics from previous tracks. Let's take the one line chorus of Blame and the first line of the second verse in Bottled Up Inside.
Blame chorus #1: "
Tear me from your heart, tearing me apart"
Bottled Up Inside, verse 2, line 1: "
My heart's breaking, man, you really ripped it out"
As you can see, both of these lines talk of tearing hearts. This shows Jonathan Davis's predictability as a lead singer/lyricist, as most of these lyrics still deal with poor Jonathan Davis, such as the time he got assaulted in high school(Thoughtless), how he hates the fact that he's a nice guy(Here to Stay)[No surprise that he would hate his vulnerability], and let's not forget about the song where he questions people if he is not a man if he's pissed off about stuff(Alone I Break).
But why would I give this a 1.5 instead of a 1? Well, there are the songs that show some different sides of Jon instead of talking about the same hatred over and over again. One More Time is a great example of this. Indeed, it does display the same vocals that Jon uses throughout Untouchables, which can be described as a second rate mentally unstable tone, but the difference here is that Jon is not talking about hatred again. Instead, this song has more of a gleeful overtone rather than the same message of "I'm ***ed up more than you'll ever know". Hollow Life, Make Believe, and No One's There also display some of Davis's stronger singing, having similar effects to Falling Away From Me, displaying Jon's hidden vocal ability, as if he were in the chorus instead of his high school band. These three songs are the only ones that show any true emotion from Jonathan Davis in Untouchables. Hating(No surprise that Jon would even write a song about hatred) may still talk about the same subject of Untouchables over and over again, but the bridge flips the script this time around. Jonathan Davis is now belting out an unheard of vocal range, especially when he says "
Feeling tired, Is there something wrong with meeeeeeeeee". With only one bridge, the song turned out to be decent and still contained that visceral power inside of Jonathan Davis that he showed in Follow The Leader singles Freak On A Leash and Got The Life.
Nonetheless, these postives are overshadowed by the many negatives of this disasterous release. Korn had every opportunity here to make a big comeback, but ultimately they failed. Davis has yet to stray away from lyrics dealing with teenage angst and self-strife. In my opinion, Untouchables summarizes my disgust in stereotypical teenagers. Sure, it might have been entertaining in the first two albums, but around album number five, it's old, unoriginal, bland, trite, cacophonial, annoying, immature, and downright sickening. This is definitely Korn at their worst, especially with the half-assed drumming, the one string riffing, and the weaker than circus lemonade vocals. Stay far, far, FAR away from Untouchables. VERY far, far, far away.
