Some more impressions:

To cut to the bone, this album is over produced. The last 3 albums sound like The Hives are just going crazy in front of some mics, this album the sound like they planned on recording an album and carefully crafted and cleaned up and layered these tracks. So it does sound different. But there are still some great songs on here. The lead single “tick tick boom” is classic Hives. Great tune.

There are a few producers on the album and you can tell…pretty sure his finger prints are all over “giddy up”, a song that I love and hate. It’s very different for the Hives, but it’s really catchy too. Annoying too, it’s really hard to describe. Another iffy track for me is “puppet on a string” (some catchy hooks, but it’s slow and repetitive. Saying a Hives song is repetitive is redundant though). And I’m still on the fence with “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S”. Good mixed with annoying. The only track I really hate is the 6th one, so much so that I took it out of the playlist. The Hives have done some instrumentals before and the kick ass, this one is just really out there. It doesn’t sound like a Hives track, it should never have made it onto the album.

Aside from that, I love the remaining 10 songs. “You Dress Up For Armageddon” being my current favorite. Solid album, not sure how well it’s going to be received though.

The Black and White Album came out in the UK last week which surprised the hell out of me, last I looked they didn’t even release a title for the album. The Hives are my #2 band so this album has really high expectations from me. Their previous 3 1/2 albums are phenomenal and I was worried about this one when I heard that they were working with a bunch of producers. After one listen through I can say that it’s without a doubt over produced. Especially for this band.

The rawness and ferocity seems to have been pulled back, even though there are many fast paced songs, it’s slower over all than their past albums. You can listen to it and definatly know it’s the Hives, it’s just oddly different. That’s only with one real listen through, but those are my initial impressions. Some good tracks on there though, but tracks 6 is fucking horrific and there is a point in one or two other songs where I wonder what they were aiming for.

More thorough impressions later.

This is long overdue, but here it goes.

For me, Korns’ 8th studio album is what See You on the Other Side should have been. While I like See You (I reviewed it when it came out back in ’05) I recognize it has the bands weakest album. It has it’s quality tracks, but it also has some of the weakest (oddly enough I think some of the B-sides that were cut from the album are better than a few of the songs selected). See You is really a transitional album, losing Brian was a big deal and the change of producers did put a different slant on Korn.

Now we have the officially untitled album that is without everyone’s favorite drummer, David. He basically wasn’t ready to head back into the studio and hit the road, he wanted time off to be with his family and take care of his restaurants. With the musical bug gnawing at the remaining 3 members, they decided to create without David (hopefully David comes back sooner than later, it’s very weird seeing just 3 of the original members left). He was burned out and I’m hoping that a nice break will envigorate him to come back and be better than ever (I think his work on See You was his weakest).

So minus David, the boys had to step up and create something that lives up to the Korn name. I believe they achieved that by getting some serious talent to back them up. Brooks Wackerman and the world renowned Terry Bozzio came in to write in Davids place. The percussion on this album is truly terrific, different from Davids’ style but not jarringly so. The different style made the rest of the band alter their work a bit to which gives a freshing pace and mood to the album. Keyboards have also been integrated from Zack Baird who they originally found to tour with them for the SYOTOS tour.

Untitled feels like a much more cohesive and “kornier” album than the last. The Matrix production team was used less on this one with Atticus Ross being more featured. I was afraid of a larger Nine Inch Nails influence from this, but I’m very happy to hear that that really didn’t happen (for the record I’m not too wild about The Matrix so I’m glad Korn has sorta moved away from them).

So to the point, the album sounds fantastic. Korn has always had very high production values and it’s no different here. I think this is some of Jonathan Davis’ best lyrical work in awhile, in writing and in vocal approach. He has really improved as a singer, his range is much greater now. He’s emotional as ever (Starting Over andn Kiss being standouts to me), he thankfully as kept any goofy sounding lines out (for the most part) and is really in top form on this album. The chorus sections pretty much rule. Fieldys’ base work is still strong although his track is again more in the mix of the CD, his trademark loose slap bass style doesn’t stand out like in past albums such as Follow the Leader. Munky has also grown on this album, there is some great guitar work here. Every song sounds different but it all fits together very well. Out of 13 songs I love 11 of them. Of the two I don’t like (Do What They Say and Ever Be) I just like them less than the others, I don’t even hate them. The jams come one after another, great arrangements, you get your funk beats, your heavier grooves and melodies, some wild percussion segments, a guitar solo here and there and some awesome sing along choruses.

I’m very happy with Untitled, even the case package rules. This Korn isn’t the Korn from the ’90s, it’s important to understand that. The band has gone through big changes since then and that is reflected in their current work. They’re experimenting more and are still having fun with making music to rock out to. Going on 14 years, Korn is still one of the biggest bands in the world. The new album is selling very well (debuted at #2) and their tours are going extremely well. The sound phenomenal and bring it every night (thank you Joey Jordison from Slipknot for killing it on tour with them!). In a sea of generic pop singles and garbage rap tracks I find relief that Korn is still there for me.