Brian Welch

After being in a band as monolithically important as Korn is, going it alone isn't easy. However, former KoRn axeman, Brian "Head" Welch proves that he can more than handle himself. With KoRn, Brian helped pioneer a sound that spoke to a nation of disaffected youth through eerie guitar squeals and de-tuned seven string bludgeoning. Bouncing off his counterpart James "Munky" Shaffer, Brian took the guitar to new levels of darkness. In fact, he and Shaffer are quite possibly one of the most underrated guitar duos of all-time. They viewed the guitar differently, and that's what innovation is about. That's why KoRn changed the entire landscape of heavy music—different perception. However, upon experiencing a spiritual awakening in 2005, Brian left KoRn to pursue a new life. He found salvation in Christianity and penned a captivating memoir entitled, Save Me From Myself—which became a New York Times bestseller. His solo debut shares the book's title, and it also shares the book's honesty. More importantly, it hearkens back to Brian's work with KoRn in that he's once again breaking ground musically.

Save Me From Myself blends avant garde industrial flourishes with raw, bone-bending riffs. Brian handles vocal duties as well for the first time on a record. The album kicks off with the atmospherically rigid lull of "L.O.V.E." Brian's voice sounds grizzled, and it barely reaches above a whisper, but the catharsis always remains prevalent. The guitars crescendo from painful elegance to futuristic bludgeoning. First single, "Flush," touts the line between catchy and epic, allowing Brian to flex his vocal and six-string prowess. The song itself beckons multiple listens with numerous layers to delve back into on each go around. "Die Religion Die" bounces with a mechanical eeriness, while it brandishes a jagged groove and big hook. "Re-Bel" highlights a youth choir a la Faith No More's "Be Aggressive," but the crooning comes over a wall of distortion. There's no doubt a lyrical evolution's around the corner too, as Brian continues to pen his thoughts.

The last track, "Washed By Blood," is easily the album's best. It segues from an operatic, classically influenced intro to a complete apotheosis of guitars. One thing's evident as the song's final strains feedback, Brian's not alone after all—there's something divine on his side.

—Rick Florino
09.26.08

With Save Me from Myself, former Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch presents his first solo album since his departure from the band in 2005. A born-again Christian, Welch has detailed his recovery from substance abuse and turn to religion in a best-selling autobiography of the same name, and the musical version of Save Me from Myself sets his confessions to heavy metal arrangements. That's an odd combination, to be sure, and from both directions. It's not often that one hears a heavy metal album in which the thrashing pauses while the artist's daughter prattles out a version of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and there can't be too many Christian albums which contain songs like "Flush" that begin and end with the sound of someone vomiting into a toilet. But that's the point. Welch has taken to religion (and fatherhood and abstinence) seemingly without losing his heavy metal edge, at least to the extent of expressing his newfound world view in aggressive terms. His is a muscular Christianity, and that's putting it mildly. It is also a non- (or perhaps anti-) denominational one, as he points out in a number called "Die Religion Die." This is one of several songs that seem to be sung in the voice of God, as Welch imagines God would speak. (It's an identification that carries over to the front and back cover photographs, the former a pieta, the latter a crucifixion, both featuring Welch in the role of Jesus Christ.) Some Christians may find such depictions sacrilegious, but Welch isn't worried about that. His beliefs clearly are personal, and he has used them to turn his life around. Whether he will succeed in using them to turn around the lives of his listeners is another matter, but on Save Me from Myself, he certainly tries. "These are not only words to a song," he sings in the closing track, "Washed by Blood," another number he sings as if in the voice of God, and for him that statement can apply to all the lyrics on the album. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide