The Serenity of Suffering by Korn

The Serenity of Suffering, Korn's twelfth studio album, hit on October 21, 2016, and it brought the Bakersfield band back to Roadrunner Records after The Paradigm Shift had gone out elsewhere. Nick Raskulinecz produced, and the pitch was simple: guitarist Brian "Head" Welch swore it was the heaviest thing they'd done in ages, with the most ferocious singing and playing in years.

He wasn't bluffing. With Head and Munky grinding out riffs side by side, Fieldy's bass clanking underneath and Ray Luzier hammering the kit, this sounds like the band that pioneered nu metal remembering exactly what made it dangerous in the first place. Jonathan Davis sounds genuinely unhinged, and "Rotting in Vain" rides a lurching groove that lands like a punch from the old days.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.