Brian “Head” Welch made the headlines by departing from Korn not because of money or having public arguments with members of the band (that happened after), but because he had become a born-again Christian and simply felt that he could no longer stay with the successful heavy metal group.
This happened back in 2005, after twelve years with Korn. But as Welch found out later on, that starting over once again means to do just that: back to square one. This included his audience, and working as a solo artist. Save Me From Myself would be his first record post-Korn.
Once more unto the breach
Happily for Korn fans, the album does not totally lose the sound, but it does inject a new dynamic lyrically rather than musically. In the first track, L.O.V.E., there is no growl like Jonathon Davis, but vocally there is a strong, even breathy, performance. However, although there are good riffs in the song, there really isn’t a catchy hook in the song. This is repeated throughout the album, where the focus is more on the lyrics, which is strange for a metal album. But nevertheless, this is what we have.
This brings us to Flush, a song which takes us through what Welch felt during times with Korn and reliance on crystal meth. Again, this focuses on Welch’s story more than it does on guitar work, but this is righted by Loyalty, where it becomes much more interesting to the ear. Welch swings out from whispering to screaming at opportune moments, demanding love, to “bring it back”.
Re-Bel starts off with a fantastically heavy riff, and does not let up even when the ironically cheerful children chime in to tell their part in the story. Musically, it is one of the best on the album, and maybe only a little more could have been done with it. Home, by comparison, is a bit of a filler before Save Me from Myself and Die Religion Die not so much knock on the door but kick it off its hinges.
The latter, in particular, is a fine song, with heavy riffing and technical effects throughout, along with lyrics that cry out for people to get outside of the church and help, something that is particularly needed today.
Maybe Tommorow Is a Better Day
Adonai is a song that has a long, sweeping sound to it, but is well outdone by Money, another good track that discusses worshipping the wrong type of god. It ends with a race to the finish with Welch screaming “bow down!” over and and over again, before the chorus comes in again. Shake is a nicely aggressive penultimate track, before the nine and a half minute song Washed By Blood plink-ploinks in. Like the album, this song only gets really listenable halfway through, but there is plenty of emotion in there in the end.
As a debut solo album, Save Me From Myself needed to be far more moving musically right from the start as well as lyrically, and it had to be flexible to the listener as well. It needed to appeal to fans of Korn as well as fans of Christian heavy metal, and pleasing both was a hard job to do.
Although lyrically very powerful, there needed to be more memorable riffs, more hooks for the album to be a complete success, but there are flashes of genius, especially on Die Religion Die. Demon Hunter or RED it isn’t, but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel. Just hope that it isn’t Jonathon Davis with a flamethrower.
James Clapham - After winning his Creative Writing Diploma, James Clapham moved to Slovakia. He currently works as an English teacher there, and is also ...
