Niki N. Phaser

             In a recent blog post on his official website, Linkin Park/Fort Minor member, Mike Shinoda gave fans an update on LP’s new LP. The band had their first meeting of the year, regarding the evolution of their future album, expected to be released, sometime in the summer/autumn of this year. It will be their fourth and the follow-up to the successful Minutes to Midnight. The MC seems happy with the way things are going and emphasizes a lot on the new direction of their recent songs. He even talks about initiating a new genre with this one, so the pressure to not repeat themselves seems to be really off. He also teases the army of fans, waiting for any new information: “I was going to tell you guys the working titles…but I changed my mind”, he writes. Though not a concept album, the new material is, so far, tied by “some thematic threads”, the producer also admits. Five songs are almost confirmed, with another 15-20 being worked on, a batch from which the final tracklisting is supposed to be picked. In earlier reports, there was talk of a more electronic sound, Blade Runner-inspired, but, as we all know, an album has many  gestation periods, so we’ll just have to wait and hear.

2003′s Take a Look in the Mirror has a special relevance for Korn fans, since it was the final album recorded by the original line-up, including Head (Brian Welch), who left the band to follow his religious beliefs, but has since released a solo album. The album is best known for spawning the Did My Time single, which had Angelina Jolie doing a special appearance in the video. Another great track from this album is Counting on Me, a heavy song which could be a good introduction to what Korn has to offer. The bass is massive, the guitars are big and you feel them falling on you, but the track is also a perfect display of Jonathan Davis’ complex vocals, which range from his signature schizo ramblings-type in the verse to death-metal shouting in the bridge and to dramatic dense screams for the chorus. Lyrically, the song is about dependence, but the kind where the one on whom someone is depending is the victim (“You’re the one who’s always screaming at me, I’m the one that keeps your life so care free”). This is not a give/take situation, it’s a take/take one, as we hear in the chorus: “Counting on me, Always hoping I’ll be, There for all of your problems, In turn you’re never there for me”. Of course, the song is most likely about Davis bitchin’ about some succubus that is giving him a headache, but just for the sake of rock’n'roll mythology, wouldn’t it be funny to presume that the song is about parenthood ? Lines like “Why can’t you ever back down? Why can’t you just shut your face?” or “You hate everything you see” fit really nicely to the image of a spoiled brat always kicking and screaming and demanding things and never saying thank you. Think about it…

Counting on Me LIVE AT ROCK AM RING

Linkin Park’s frontman Chester Benington is finally releasing an album with his side-project, Dead by Sunrise, comprised of Julien-K and ex-Orgy members. Talks of a non-Linkin Park project have been circulating even before Meteora days. This time, it’s the real deal. Benington revealed that Dead by Sunrise will release an album entitled Out of Ashes in September. The sound will be dramatically different from Linkin Park, mainly due to the absence of Mike Shinoda, who, Benington considers, “has created our signature sound“. There will be no hip-hop influences on this one, just straightforward rock. The album will have ten tracks, as this reminds Benington of the memorable records of the 60′s and 70′s. A possible first single is a track named Crawl Back In, for which they will be shooting a video around the beginning of August. As for gigs, the nu-metal icon announced through Twitter a series of surprise Dead by Sunrise shows, adding “They will be short sets. And no one will know when or where they will be”. The one hint he gave was “So if anyone wants to see us doing these performances you’d better try to get to the LP shows this summer”. Their first official offering (through their Myspace page), entitled Morning After, is quite promising.