Follow the Leader

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump down to a 3, though I did honestly enjoy a solid chunk of this.

If you like nu-metal, you’re gonna fuck with the production on this a lot. All the general tropes of the genre are here, and in terms of the energy it all brings, it will evoke a sort of 1998 mosh pit of overblown guitar, wacky bass & percussion booming in your ear. From solely an instrumental standpoint, I don’t think I have anything really major to complain about for the album.

Lyrically, I think the only obvious super duper miss here is “All in the Family” – Fred Durst has not honed his songwriting at all (and frankly, I’m not sure he ever really did), nor has he trained his voice to go into its goofier tone that made “Chocolate Starfish” a fun listen regardless of how mediocre most of the tracks are on that album. It’s a juvenile back & forth that’s too edgy even by the Springer-y standards of 1998, it’s aged terribly, and it’s not even a witty rap battle by the standards of fucking Supa Hot Fire. “Boom Bam Bop Badabap Boom Pow” is probably a better line than anything Fred Durst or Jonathan Davis wrote here.

Speaking of “boom bam bop badabap boom pow”, it’s time to talk about the vocals, which are ultimately fine – Jonathan’s voice doesn’t lend itself to a very musical tone, so he relies a lot more on grittier, heavier, moodier stuff to try and enhance the instrumentation. Generally, it works well enough, but there are moments where he sticks out in a bad way, specifically on the multitude of times he does his weird scatting bit throughout the album. It’s jarring as hell, it never really works, and it sounds more like the Tasmanian Devil thrown into a spin cycle in a recording booth.

I want to quickly touch on the torture porn of “My Gift to You”, which is far more digestible if you treat it like he’s playing a character consumed by his demons. Honestly, the mood of that track sets it apart in a cool way for me, as the eerie atmosphere the instrumentation builds around the track is kind of incredible. It’s totally fucked up to a sickening degree, but they at least know it. They’re not making it into any kind of pleasure except his own sick twisted fantasy. I would deeply advise against following any of Jonathan’s deeper, darker, cruel, rape-y fantasies in that track, but if you can accept it as a character of sorts, its perverse nature is fascinating, and his vocals feel almost primally sub-human.

Overall, I liked about 9 of the tracks here (10 if you include Cheech Marin’s very goofy bonus gift), but I didn’t like the entire album experience that much. It’s a bit bloated due to CD length, it rounds the bases on its tracks a number of times, and the overall nu metal style feels a bit repetitive even after 45 minutes, let alone 67. Since this album takes itself far more seriously than “Chocolate Starfish” did, and doesn’t really have the same charisma behind it as “Hybrid Theory” does, it just ends up as sort of an average metal album draped in nu metal production. It’s totally fine, and an enjoyable listen if you love the production, but as a whole experience, I think it’s a 3.5 that I just can’t bump up to a 4, hence a 3. Always skip “All in the Family”, at the very least.

I saw Korn at a festival once and thought "what the fuck is this" and walked on by

I was only familiar with Freak On A Leash. The rest was decent instrumentally. Liked the guitars - vocals not so much

Album was also way too long but it was better than a lot of stuff I've listened to on here. Giving it an alright rating

3 ⭐️

Very interesting sound - bit too juvenile in places, or tackles subject matter that is too much for them but a-side is hit after hit and the vocal performance is incredible. Weak 3 but I would be interested to hear more

The juvinile is suprisingly self aware. The rock rocks.

Korn is interesting. IMO the King of Nu Metal...certainly one of the most sincere. This album is not as good as their first two, but still a worthwhile listen in general. 3.5/5

People out here giving Steely Dan 5's and Korn 1's are showing their age and their thrash taste.

My album yesterday was Abbey Road. Safe to say this won't be another 5 but if you can't appreciate Freak on a Leash I pity you.

Limp Bizkit had more an influence on me than Korn but they are still groundbreakers when it comes to nu metal. I haven't listened to this album much. I like it. It's a bit repetitive and overly long but I can definitely see how teenagers filled with piss and vinegar would love this.

3/5.

The bass sounds like they forgot to plug it into the amp and just held a mic really close to it. Can't stand the vocals. This is, if anything, worse than Limp Bizkit. Couldn't finish.

This record was all the rage freshman year of high school. The first three tracks remain legitimate bangers, but after that the quality drops precipitously, bottoming out in the truly abysmal “All In The Family” which is one of the very worst products of Western Culture, though emblematic of the late 90s.

This was terrible when new and hasn't aged well.

Uninspired nu metal. Gimmicky shouting vocals and monotonous grinding music.

Very angry, without a huge amount of direction.

Schrott, wenn man keine Nostalgieaktien drin hat.

Great cover. An interesting album. I've learned something again. I wasn't familiar with Nu Metal. I like some of the approaches on the album. In some places the music sounds like Faith No More (probably no coincidence), in other places I recognize Rammstein (Neue Deutsche Härte) or Linkin Park. Nevertheless, the band has a lot of originality. Overall, I find the music exhausting. Beforehand, I thought that I would get through the album quickly and only play a few tracks. And now I've listened to it in its entirety. Maybe I should give the album another chance when I'm in the right mood. 3/5

It seems “got the life” got its hooks into me so thoroughly when this first came out that I still like it. The rest, though…

I was doing ok with this until those last couple songs. Terrible ending to an already not great time.

Nu Metal really doesn't stand the test of time, and under the modern gaze a lot of this is downright reprehensible. I was never a Korn fan, so I didn't come in here with the cloud of youthful nostalgia, but this just didn't sit right with me at all... Lots of stuff to talk to my therapist about though.

Pretty cool album. Freak on a Leash is a calssic

Wegweisendes Album für das Genre des Nu-Metal. Trotz der innovativen Produktion und einigen denkwürdigen Tracks ist es zu polarisierend. Es fehlt vielen Songs an Tiefgang und musikalischer Reife. Der experimentelle Ansatz der Band, hat sich nicht positiv auf die Qualität des Weks ausgewirkt.

For the metal head in all of us.

I really like a lot of the songs, but there's so much shit in between.. Most of the songs featuring other artists are pretty cringy.
+1 for bagpipes