"In many cases, dark, depressing and angry lyrics are exactly what heavy metal is all about and that's no surprise. However, while much of The Paradigm Shift reaches back to KoRn's best years musically, the album does miss the boat on something else KoRn had in spades during their best years: lyrical diversity. All told, Korn's 11-track 11th album is a very fine return to form for the metal stalwarts (whose new album is released 19 years, almost to the day, after their debut), but the lyrics pack a certain brand of sameness into the spectrum of headbanging metallic textures in most every song".