KORN – THE PATH OF TOTALITY
Released 5th November 2011 (Roadrunner Records)

Words: Gaz Martinez

Dubstep, love it or hate it, has been steadily gaining recognition in the music world, with professional artists recording albums, or enthusiastic amateurs remixing elements from their favourite TV show. It was perhaps inevitable that such a genre would find its way into the rock world in one form or another. Korn is by no means the first band to dabble into the world of dubstep, anybody who remembers much of 2009 will remember that Enter Shikari dropped their second album, Common Dreads, which definitely carried some sort of influence from dubstep, heard in songs such as Havoc B and Zzzonked. That said, it would be wrong to assume that the sounds that Shikari and Korn have produced are the same, fundamentally, they are two very different bands and have taken two very different directions concerning dubstep. While Shikari’s dabbling in the genre at the time was largely produced in-house and limited to serving as the icing on their cake. Korn, always being a band unafraid to experiment musically, have instead decided to completely immerse themselves in the genre, going so far as collaborating with plenty or dubstep artists, Skrillex, Noisia, and 12th Planet to name a few. Rather than the icing, dubstep is the sponge and foundation of this album, as far as the genre goes, all the trademarks of dubstep are present, from the heavy drops, the bass.

It is difficult to pick out a particular highlight off this album, every song manages to blend with each other perfectly, which on one hand, demonstrates how well the band have thrown themselves into the music, full throttle, without any previous safe experimenting to test the water, on the other, it suggests that the album sounds largely monotonous. For me, it is definitely the former, though it may be a bit much listening to it all in one go. That said, The Path of Totality succeeds mainly because of Korn’s perception in people’s eyes, it’s just like Korn to not only create something so radically different, but to actually pull it off. While Metallica’s Lulu will be remembered than little more than a gimmick, if that, Korn have potentially brought an entirely new avenue of musical possibility to the mainstream.