Korn

Surviving a shaky decade that produced a couple decent albums and few identity crises, Korn bring it back to basics on their 12th full-length, The Serenity of Suffering. It's both a reminder that Korn are the masters of this particular universe and also fiercely dedicated to its fans. Inasmuch as the Korn faithful are capable of fuzzy feelings, Serenity delivers goose bumps for those who have stuck with the band since the '90s. Diehards will notice that Jonathan Davis and the gang have brought things back to the Issues/Untouchables era – especially on "Take Me" and "Everything Falls Apart" – when Korn perfected the combination of nu-metal brutality, desperate vulnerability, and spook show creepiness (in fact, the Issues doll – now wrapped in stitched-up skin with exposed ribs – makes a prominent appearance on Serenity's album art). Without pandering to career-peak nostalgia, Korn deftly execute all the hallmarks that have come to define their sound.

Just short of a decade into their incredibly successful and influential career, Korn went into Take a Look in the Mirror publicly stating their hopes to record a fresh-sounding album, a seemingly simple task that they somewhat ended up accomplishing. They needed a fresh album - one that differed from their past couple, the similar-sounding Issues (1999) and Untouchables (2002), yet at the same time wouldn't alienate their notoriously fickle nu-metal fan base. Issues and Untouchables had been fine albums, but Korn definitely needed a change - if they wanted to remain relevant, that is. There's a lot of turnover in the metal world because there's always the next big thing (whether it's thrash, grindcore, alt-metal, rap-metal, or whatever), and the rare bands that do last (like, say, Tool)…

Taking a cue from the Van Halen playbook, the III in the title of Korn III: Remember Who You Are isn’t a numbering device, it signifies an opening of another phase in Korn’s career. Somehow, the band has bypassed a Korn II altogether in their discography, but it’s commonly acknowledged that the tail-end of the 2000s found the group floundering a bit, going so far as to flirt with the Matrix in an attempt to figure out which direction to go now that they’ve hit middle age. This is where the subtitle comes in: the group has certainly remembered who they are, ditching all the affectations that crippled their muddled 2007 eponymous album and rediscovering their voice. They’ve gone back to the coiled, furious sputter of their debut, but there’s no disguising that Korn is an older band, substituting precision for frenzy without diluting their power…