Say what you like about the Deftones fourth album, a self-titled affair, but don't say that it could have been easy to slap together. The band was in the ever-precarious position between declining record sales for nü-metal veterans (KoRn, limpbizkit) and the ever-present demands of their fans to produce a record that sounded just like their old-school hits Adrenaline and Around the Fur. The band more or less dodged this perennial bullet on White Pony by releasing a CD loaded half with heavy tracks, half with experimental tracks, and throwing in goodies like a collaboration with Maynard James Keenan of Tool for good measure. With the latest album, though, the rubber had to hit the road -- how would the Deftones merge the demands of fame and declining album sales with the clamor of their fans?
The answer, thankfully, is a good one. The Deftones have once again refused to acknowledge the question as a valid one, and have continued, as always to forge their own musical path, including rip-roaring ferocity on the same album as brooding, focused moody pieces. The result is an album with a more cohesive feel of staying power than any of its predecessors. It's neither choppy and undeveloped nor overproduced and wishy-washy.
For starters, it's clear that the Deftones have stayed true to their roots. This album explores the melodic, moody side of metal as most of today's new artists could only wish to in their wildest dreams. The efforts to expand the band's repertoire are nowhere near as forced as those of White Pony, even as the heavy tracks reclaim a renewed sense of raw power from that predecessor. The opener "Hexagram" includes some of the best mixtures of vocalist Chino Moreno's singing and screaming to date, begging immediately for a bump up in volume. It, like each track on the album, gains a fresh feeling from the band's newly low-tuned instruments -- Stephen Carpenter now plays on a 7-string guitar, and Chi Cheng on a 5-string bass. The result is rich and full, perhaps displayed most potently on "Bloody Cape," a piece as close to purebred heavy metal as the band has ever played, complete with a punishing main riff and a low, heavy, wickedly fast bridge. "When Girls Telephone Boys" is the most ballsy piece of work on the album vocally, with Moreno powering through airy, impassioned screams throughout. The distorted verse guitars string out the sense of drama beautifully, making for an instant mosh-pit classic.
Unlike some of the Deftones' failed mood music of the past (see "Mascara" and "Teenager"), this album ventures into wild sonic landscapes with a near-effortless feel. "Lucky You," which came off as a bit unimpressive on the Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack, meshes into the whole album with ease, as Moreno delivers scratchy whispers atop the electronic work of DJ Frank Delgado: "If you're feeling lucky / Come and take me home." The sexual overtones have clearly not left the Moreno's ever-abstract poetic repertoire, though they have taken a less violent feel on this album. "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" marks the first earnest use of a piano in a Deftones track, but comes off as not the least bit forced with Moreno's plaintive cries surrounding every corner of the song's sound. These tracks are each made more potent in their careful placement (near the end of the album) and their uniform production compared to the rest of the album (lacking in the band's previous attempts to record anything this creative).
Between the airy, experimental tracks and the ridiculous hard-rockers lie many of this album's songs, somewhere in a more moderated hard-rock mold. The lead single "Minerva," while not among the very best of the album's material, has a captivating soulful feel about it, with a low, slow riff colliding with Moreno's most elevated harmonies beautifully. "Needles and Pins" only works in a few screams at its most crucial moments, more frequently relying on prolonged melodies with raspy background vocals mixing in -- the track combines the band's aggression and melodic potential more capably than they have previously managed. "Deathblow" incorporates a classic, raspy Deftones verse with a newfound melodic ability in the chorus, for yet another captivating final product.
That the Deftones have chosen this effort to bear the self-titled moniker is not quite the cop-out that it may first appear to be. To put it, simply, this album does exemplify each aspect of the band's musical mission all at once. In eleven tracks, the Deftones have captured fury, pain, passion and the wide variety of the human experience without tossing their classic sound into the bucket. Around the Fur put this variety of feeling into an album with nowhere near this much musical dynamicism; White Pony brought the musical variety without all of the emotional effectiveness. For the first time, the Deftones have put it all into one place, and it's exactly why Deftones can, and should, be the album that saves nü-metal from itself.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.