The rest of Korn had his back. That quiet moment during “Fake” is a rare bit of respite amid these 12 tracks. They are, for the most part, like the militia at his side and rear, ready to defend Davis as he lambastes the people who have hurt and harassed him. That ability owes, at least in part, to the band’s idiosyncratic setup.
In the early ’90s, Munky had fallen for the strange sounds of Steve Vai’s athletic guitar, always moving like an elite gymnast who had unlocked an extra limb. When he learned that Vai was playing a seven-string Ibanez, he not only got one for himself but also convinced his bandmate Head to try one, too. The tandem tweaked the instruments, adjusting the strings and springs so that the sound was deeper and thicker, covering bits of the spectrum a bass would ordinarily manage. That allowed the band’s actual bassist, Fieldy, to approach his instrument differently, channeling an early love of funk-rock into distinct lead lines. With five strings instead of four, Fieldy could slide upward into some space normally reserved for guitars, adding licks and even taking stunted solos in the room abdicated by Head and Munky. All these tonal shifts meant the bass wasn’t always tied to the drums, too, so that Silveria could move more freely. He responded to the rest of the band in real time, his hits sometimes landing, crucially, like Davis’ fists.
To wit, on “Ball Tongue,” a break-up song with an old friend, Davis recounts all the ways he’s been disappointed until he just runs out of words. He repeatedly hurls himself into inscrutable scat outbursts, his annoyance beyond ordinary expression. (He was, mind you, also freaking out on meth in his dad’s studio during this take.) Especially at the start, Silveria’s drums are enormous, each hit lasting longer than it needs. Head and Munky’s guitars sound like sirens or a mind spinning out, while Fieldy seems to be slapping at Silveria’s every beat, a mountain lion pawing at a house cat’s toy. It is intentionally mean, the four old friends telling their new pal’s old friend to fuck off forever. And during “Helmet in the Bush,” a song about trying to overcome an addiction that is breaking Davis’ body, they become his backbone, forever trying to pull him back toward the center as he spirals.
