Friday is the day the whole world releases new songs. Already, we've had ‘drops’ from Machine Head, Clutch, Alice Cooper, Katatonia, Tribulation, Theroin, Black Veil Brides and roughly 37,250,129 others.
One band who have made an unexpected return are Love And Death, the long-dormant side-project from Korn guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch, who released a brand new single, Down, and announced their upcoming second album, Perfectly Preserved.
The accompanying press release bigged up the album. “Creative risks… blah blah… real stories about overcoming struggles… yadda yadda.”
But buried deep we found this: “Former Flyleaf singer, Lacey Sturm lends her vocals to a metallic rendition of a surprising pop cover.” And that's it. No info, no details, nada. Which made us curious.
Intrepid investigative journalists we are, we decided to delve deeper. The track Sturm appears on is titled Let Me Love You. According to The Internet, several artists have recorded a track by that name, among them bluesman BB King, soul legend Ray Charles and reggae star Shaggy.
None of them are ‘pop’ artists. But according to Wikiepedia, a bunch of people who do fit that description have recorded a song of the same name. These include Ariana Grande and DJ Snake ft. Justin Bieber.
While we're not ruling out the former, our money’s on Head covering the latter’s version. While the song itself is a full on club banger, the Biebs is a practising Christian – just like Head and Lacey Sturm. And lyrics such as “Don’t give up, nah, nah, nah,” could be a reference to the importance of faith. Plus Ozzy collaborator Andrew Watt was involved in the original, lending it a vague shred of rock cred.
What could it mean? We have no idea. And we haven’t heard the Love And Death album, so we're not betting the house on it. But given how 2020 has panned out, the dude from Korn outing himself as a Belieber would be the least surprising thing we've heard this year.
Perfectly Preserved tracklist
1. Infamy
2. Tragedy
3. Down
4. Let Me Love You (feat Lacey Sturm)
5. Death Of Us
6. Slow Fire
7. The Hunter (feat. Keith Wallen)
8. Lo Lamento
9. Affliction
10. White Flag (feat Ryan Hayes)