KoRn broke out their new track ‘Reward The Scars’ live for the first time to a 50,000-strong crowd at Sick New World at the weekend. Check out footage below.
The American nu-metal icons surprise released the song last week (Friday April 24), marking their first new music in four years and written for the Diablo IV video game expansion, Lord Of Hatred. They’ve since released the gory animated video for the track too.
Jonathan Davis and co. performed the single for the first time at their huge headline slot at Sick New World festival, which took place in Las Vegas on Saturday (April 25). They debuted the single midway through their 17-song setlist, having already opened with fan favourites including ‘Blind’, ‘Twist’ and ‘Got The Life’.
“I know it’s been a long-ass day, but it feels so good to be back playing for y’all,” the frontman told the crowd before launching into the new song.
“We’ve been out touring shit a little bit, but we’ve been stuck in a fucking studio for five years,” he added. “We’ve been working hard. We had some good shit. We got rid of that, and then we made some badass shit. Would you guys like to hear that song? It just came out.”
From there the band went into the ferocious track, which is centred around thunderous bass and guitar riffs and sees Davis lead into the anthemic chorus: “Help me free the ones I saved/ And I can walk the path that’s laid/ Break me, take me all the way soul betrayed”.
The track is produced by Nick Raskulinecz, who started working with the group on their 12th album ‘The Serenity Of Suffering’, which dropped in 2016.
It arrived following guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch teasing new music in an interview with Loudwire at the start of the year, saying that while they were mainly focused on playing live, they did have some announcements up their sleeves for 2026.
“We’re focusing right now on our live show,” he said. “It feels like we don’t even need a new album. Everything’s just going so well, but that’s not to say we’re not going to find some time to go in again.”
“I feel like it’s not [a] priority right now [but] there could be a couple of surprises this year,” he added.
Before then, Welch said in 2024 that the band were well underway with their first new album since 2022’s ‘Requiem’, but confirmed that it wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon as they were “still working” on it.
Their slot at Sick New World – where they topped the bill alongside System Of A Down and Bring Me The Horizon – comes ahead of the nu-metal giants touring across South America next month, and heading over to Europe for more shows in October.
UK tour dates kick off in Leeds on October 26, and other dates lined-up include slots in Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Dublin and London. Support will come from Architects and Youth Code, and you can find any remaining tickets here.
‘Requiem’ was given a four-star review from NME, which described it as “adding a tentative touch of hope to the band’s discography”.
It read: “2019’s ‘The Nothing’ found frontman Jonathan Davis crushed by grief. The follow-up adds a tentative touch of hope to the band’s discography. It would be a push to call this Korn’s first ‘happy’ album. More accurately, ‘Requiem’ has brought something new to a discography that, until now, has been an exploration of human suffering. It’s led to the band’s most nuanced record to date.”