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* Fieldy’s Dreams

ROCK N ROLL GANGSTER

(Epic)

Last year, former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland’s lo-fi side project Big Dumb Face set an awful precedent for new-metal vanity albums with their unlistenable debut. Now it’s Korn bassist Fieldy’s turn, and his moment in the sun turns out to be just as embarrassing: Rock N Roll Gangster is a half-baked attempt at blunted Cypress Hill gangsta comedy, complete with guest appearances from veteran Hill stand-ins the Pharcyde and Funkdoobiest.

Fieldy’s amateurism serves him well in Korn, where his heavily distorted slapping and popping has redefined the low end for contemporary metal. But it’s another story on the mic, where he can barely keep up with the elementary bitches-and-weed shtick that dominates the disc. The beats split the difference between standard SoCal pimp strut and up-tempo Southern bounce — nothing adventurous enough to bail out the struggling MC. The lone highlight, Korn singer Jonathan Davis’s paranoid cameo on the chorus of “Just for Now,” barely makes sense in the context of Fieldy’s wanton braggadocio. Korn attract the type of high-school burnouts who pride themselves on their idiocy, but Fieldy’s Dreams isn’t competent enough to keep even those fans from buying the new Nas album instead.

— Sean Richardson