In the spring of 1990,史蒂夫·瓦伊（Steve Vai）揭示了他的第二张个人专辑Passion and Warfare。无论是在商业上还是在乐器的历史上，专辑都消除了边界。Vai是在美国获得黄金的唯一版本，转移了超过500,000份。更重要的是，它标志着他签名的首次亮相Ibanez宇宙是世界上第一个批量生产的固体七弦。19岁詹姆斯·谢弗（James Shaffer）首先听到了，它吹了他的想法。
“It’s a fucking amazing album,” the Californian guitarist better known as ‘Munky’ enthuses over Zoom. “From the beginning to the end, I was like, ‘How does this guy make his guitar talk?!’”
令人敬畏的是 - 直到Shaffer注意到“小意大利艺术家”错过了一个技巧。“当我开始一遍又一遍地听它时，”他继续说道，兴奋地逐渐逐渐思考，“我听到了一些使用低字符串的即兴演奏。但是我想要更多。我记得当他们释放吉他时，我想：“我必须有一个，所以我可以尝试那个低弦！’”
Shaffer已经爱上了吉他。在摩托车事故中失去了尖端后，他可能刚刚开始恢复手指，但他的比赛迅速发展成为一种痴迷。听到Vai之后，他每周开始去当地的吉他店，只有通过他的“卑鄙的工作搬家家具”而获得的微薄薪水。他每次都会给他们100美元，以便他可以在他们保存在架子上的白色宇宙上。直到他们把他踢出去之前，他不会停下来。
四年后Passion and Warfare，伊巴内斯宇宙再次帮助锻造历史。Shaffer在他的乐队的同名首张专辑中演奏了它科恩, belting out some of the heaviest riffs ever to batter metalheads’ eardrums. There were no solos or sweep arpeggios – nothing flashy to interrupt the power of seven strings reverberating at their deepest. Alongside fellow player布莱恩·“头”韦尔奇，Munky帮助为新的子流派建立了基础：NU-Metal。进一步通过助手的流行Limp Bizkitto活结，声音将为一代人统治沉重的音乐。
沉重的云
即使经过三十年，Korn公式仍然催眠。仅仅32分钟，他们的新专辑安魂曲立即提醒着五重奏的力量。第一轨Forgottenopens with low B strings booming, the sound this time blasting out of Shaffer’s signature Ibanez Apex and Welch’s特别是SH-7 Evertune。
“Some people are gonna be like, ‘Oh my god, EverTune, no!’” says Shaffer, laughing. “But let me tell you: it’s made our lives a lot easier. We’re not spending loads of time tuning our guitars because mine’s out of tune with Brian’s, and that carries over into our live shows; we can just beat the shit out of them.”
主持人乔纳森·戴维斯（Jonathan Davis）仍然从不祥的哥特（Goth）嘶哑到坚硬的摇滚哀号。他荒谬的抹黑，定义了1998年的巨人皮带上的怪胎, even makes a last-minute comeback on album finale最糟糕的是。Reginald“ field” Arvizu clickety-clacks又通过混合物再次出现了巴掌。
每首歌都是一首简短而敏锐的国歌，证明了被低估的流行排骨的证据，这些排骨赋予了诸如此类Falling Away From Me和在这里停留with radio dominance around the turn of the millennium. “We’re not trying to reinvent or anything,” says Welch, talking withGuitar.comon a separate video call from his home in Nashville.
The music may follow the same beats but the messaging of安魂曲couldn’t be further from the snarl that marked Korn’s ascent. They announced the album with the single开始康复，戴维斯命令听众“break apart the pain”并确保“您将成功，撤出这些入侵者”。Optimism espoused by the same voice that sang爸爸（“无辜的孩子 /看起来很甜蜜 /我会强奸你的想法 /现在你的肉我收获”）？至少可以说是令人震惊的。
“You can only feel that heavy cloud above you for so many years,” rationalises Welch. “I love this album because it has a healing vibe. It’s got more positivity than past Korn records and it’s more vulnerable.”
Back from Nothing
As well as alluding to the Roman Catholic ritual intended to bring peace to the souls of the dead, for Welch the title安魂曲代表了乐队最近的悲伤过程的结束。2018年2月，戴维斯的母亲霍莉（Holly）于68岁去世。六个月后，他疏远的妻子Deven死于39岁的意外过量服药，留下了两个儿子和一个继子。
韦尔奇说：“如果您要尊敬死者，我认为那是一件好事 - 一件积极的事情。”“就抒情内容而言，这是上一张唱片的自然发展。”
如果安魂曲捕获科恩（Korn什么都没有, was the sound of them drowning in its blackened quagmire. The album was named after the antagonist of the 1984 fantasy filmThe NeverEnding Story：一场破坏想象力和纯真的愤怒，不露面的风暴。“我只是我以前的男人的阴影，”戴维斯在这首歌中how叫这个损失。“我所爱的一切总是从我那里夺回。”然后，靠近Surrender to Failure, he openly weeps, “I failed! I failed!”。
戴维斯发出的痛苦什么都没有既鲜艳又新鲜。韦尔奇说：“当他的孩子的母亲去世时，我们正处于写作中间。”“你可能会感到震惊和悲伤。有孩子参与。”
“当我们写作时，他不在录音室里什么都没有,” says Shaffer. Neither of the guitarists are eager to dwell on the topic, and both quickly go on to compare the melancholy of什么都没有他们觉得有友情安魂曲。While什么都没有besieged the band from within, recording in 2021 – during the seemingly ceaseless pandemic – meant that all their worries lived outside their studio walls.
“Having Jonathan back not only lightened the mood but gave us a sense of direction,” says Shaffer, with a smile. “We were having so much fun but then we’d go back to our hotel and everyone was dressed like fucking Stormtroopers.”
韦尔奇说：“我们一起吃饭，我们一起交谈，每天我们一起写音乐。”“在非常不确定，可怕和消极的时刻，一切都非常积极。”
开始康复
尽管大流行，但整个乐队还是在同一工作室中录制的安魂曲在制片人克里斯·科利尔（Chris Collier）的关注下。然而，随着专辑的跟踪得出的结论，新的裂缝以五件式出现了，这只是刚刚抹去了最后一件。“从身体上讲，菲尔迪在那里，”谢弗说。“但是我不知道他在情感上是否在那里。”这不是他渴望澄清的声明。“有时候，他觉得他不想在那里。”
In June 2021, the bassist announced on social media that he’d be taking a leave of absence from the band he’d co-founded 28 years prior. He wrote that personal issues had caused him to “fall back on some of [his] bad habits”. “It’s been suggested to me to take some time off to heal,” he added. “I’m going to respect what was asked of me and take that time.”
Though Shaffer and Welch don’t specify the “bad habits” that have necessitated Fieldy’s hiatus, both insinuate that substance abuse is at least a serious part of the problem. “When I went through my bad habits,” Shaffer remembers, “I was partying, drinking and doing all kinds of drugs. I’d just lost my father and my mum had passed away five years before that. I understand using those crutches to make a moment feel better.”
韦尔奇（Welch）在经历了多年的酗酒和甲基苯丙胺滥用之后，于2005年2月离开了科恩（Korn），他也同情。他承认：“我一直都喝醉了。”“然后我添加了铁杆药物。我只是厌倦了成为瘾君子，酗酒和摇滚明星。”
Now that Fieldy’s been removed from the fold for more than eight months, Shaffer reports that the bassist “is doing okay”. However, “There’s some more healing that needs to happen in his life before he can come back and play with us.”
For the time being, Korn are a man down. But Shaffer and Welch aren’t letting that dampen the psychological restoration encapsulated by安魂曲。他们的音乐方法仍在连续第四个十年中运作，并且随着巡回演出的回归，他们同意这是在Korn中的好时机。
“This period is how people are gonna remember us,” says Shaffer. “They’re not gonna remember us for our wild parties. There are always parties but what did you leave behind once the party’s over, except empty bottles? Well, we left great music.”
安魂曲现在通过Loma Vista。