Korn, Sean Kingston, Sum 41 and Chromeo.

the music press

wed 8/1/2007

A collage of Korn, Sean Kingston, Sum 41 and Chromeo.

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Nu-metal godfathers Korn, minus founding guitarist Brian “Head” Welch and drummer David Silveria, release their eighth studio album, Untitled. Billboard.com announces: "Korn is one step closer to crafting an album built for arenas and headphones alike," while Popmatters laments the untitled release "offers us nothing to remember and isn’t even particularly accessible."
Sean Kingston, the 17-year-old behind the reggae-inflected hit Beautiful Girls, releases his self-titled debut. Entertainment magazine Variety admits that Kingston "can sound wise beyond his years and deliver hard-edged rhymes" but does so "in limited doses." Sputnikmusic goes straight for the jugular: "[The album] is entirely devoid of anything that makes a pop album worth listening to; even the catchy stuff is so wrapped up in the absolute fakeness that it's hard to take seriously."
Pop-punkers Sum 41, now a power trio, take a stab at political rock with Underclass Hero, "the band's smartest and most mature-sounding album yet," according to the Onion's A.V. Club. The U.K.'s Guardian Unlimited isn't buying the band's new direction, labeling the Canadians "Green Day without the range and the charm."
Fancy Footwork, the second album by electrofunk duo Chromeo won't "rank as one of the year’s finest long-players from an artistic perspective" but it's "guaranteed to get any house party started," concludes Drowned In Sound. The Quebec-based duo mines "the production work of Jellybean Benitez and Full Force" to create an album that is "playfully sleazy and full of cheap thrills," writes Stylus magazine.