Korn - Follow The Leader (1998/2016) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/192kHz]

Like Fear Factory and a host of others, Korn combines streamlined metal with ominous industrial touches and an undercurrent of hip-hop rhythm. „Follow The Leader“ is an urban nightmare, as unrelentingly dark as Onyx, Tool or Nine Inch Nails, and stylistically indebted to all three. The twin guitars of Munky and Head provide the requisite rock quotient, but throughout the album the band ventures beyond heavy rock cliches. The churning, jackhammer rhythms are leavened by subtle synthesizer work and occasionally the band falls into a bracing hip-hop beat, allowing them to show off the hard-edged syncopation that's at the core of their very visceral sound. Fostering the rap influence, Ice Cube makes a guest appearance on 'Children of the Korn,' and his hellbound, apocalyptic worldview sounds perfectly at home on „Follow The Leader“.

More than anything, Korn are about sound. They write songs, but those wind up not being nearly as memorable as their lurching metallic hip-hop grind. They have yet to exhaust that sound, and that's why their third album, Follow the Leader, is an effective follow-up to their first two alt-metal landmarks. Not that it offers anything new – it's the same sound, offered in a more focused forum than Life Is Peachy, but not sounding as fresh as Korn. In fact, it begins to wear a little thin toward the end of the album, but guitarists Head Welch and Munky Shaffer find enough tonal variations over the course of the album to keep it interesting, and vocalist Jonathan Davis nearly matches them with his cavalcade of voices. If the songs themselves don't leave much of an impression, it's because they're not supposed to – they're simply vehicles for the metallic grind, which provides all the visceral rush any Korn fan needs.

Tracklist:

01 - It's On!
02 - Freak On a Leash
03 - Got the Life
04 - Dead Bodies Everywhere
05 - Children of the Korn
06 - B.B.K.
07 - Pretty
08 - All In the Family
09 - Reclaim My Place
10 - Justin
11 - Seed
12 - Cameltosis
13 - My Gift to You
14 - Earache My Eye

Produced by Steve Thompson & Toby Wright. Engineered by Toby Wright & John Ewing, Jr.
Recorded in March–May 1998 at NRG Recording Studios, North Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA.

Line-up:
Jonathan Davis - vocals, bagpipes
Brian 'Head' Welch - guitar
James 'Munky' Shaffer - guitar
Reginald 'Fieldy' Arvizu - bass
David Silveria - drums
Additional musicians:
Fred Durst - vocals
Tre Hardson - vocals
Ice Cube - vocals
Cheech Marin - vocals
Justin Z. Walden - drums, programming


Thanks to the Original customer!