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