Yet, "The Paradigm Shift" keeps largely to the cautious side while re-assimilating Head back into their graces. "See You on the Other Side" was to the good, while the 2007 self-titled was its bipolar bastard. There's no fault to KORN tooling with their sound, even to mixed results. The drag to "The Paradigm Shift" is that it carries so much ripeness for a while, many of KORN's fans are wont to go "WTF?" as they likely did an album prior. With Head bringing his reborn chi into the band, KORN dumps much of their ferocity and menace, to the point the "Issues" sloppy-kissing cousin "Mass Hysteria" shambles instead of shakes, even with a return of nervous guitar shivers lurking throughout it. The brittle opening number "Prey for Me" is as beastly as KORN gets for a while and even that carries a tempered slide instead of the blunt clubbing effect that's been their m.o. At least until the seventh track, "Never Never", the album tames down KORN's unhinged animal that's given them primal attraction, so much they flip through their midline playbooks and opt for safe, almost conservative formations halfway through the ride. One might say "The Paradigm Shift" is reflective of the band's tenure in the industry. Hardly the most urgent album KORN's laid down, "The Paradigm Shift" settles for groove and a direct attack that dips its ladle back into the "Untouchables" and "Take a Look in the Mirror" period of the band, along with a skein tap here and there into "Issues". If you're expecting KORN to come out with all guns blazing accordingly on "The Paradigm Shift", then you're in for a rude awakening. "The Paradigm Shift" comes on the heels of the dubstep-licked "The Path of Totality" from two years back and with the new album marks the return of estranged guitarist Brian "Head" Welch. To certain degrees, the mainstream muscle of "Follow the Leader" and "Issues" helped legitimize heavy music in this country once again, at least from a marketability standpoint. Say what you will about this band "Korn" 1994 and their second album, "Life is Peachy" have their place in propagating the return of metal music to America. In that time, KORN has partaken quite a journey that has seen them cast as heroes and rogues, depending on whether you carry a metaller-than-thou point-of-view. It seems weird that KORN now carries senior status in the metal scene, but here we are on album eleven, nearly two decades following their crusty and tense self-titled debut.
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