I’ve never been a huge fan of the Deftones. In fact, I found them a little on the over-rated side but having said that, they did stand out from the rest of the sickly irritating ‘Nu-Metal’ movement that spawned them. Apart from their blistering debut, they’ve released a slew of bloated, pretentious and misdirected follow-ups but for some reason or another, I would always take time to check them out nonetheless. As a live act, they are simply incredible. I saw them a while ago on a Cure tribute performance and they floored me with how good they sounded. So full of atmosphere, depth and genuine emotion. I said to myself, ‘now why can’t they be like that on their albums?’ Someone must have heard me because on the latest opus ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ - they have blown me away. This is a multi-layered, textured slab of music that gets better with each passing listen. Magnificently produced by one of the genuine supremos of the production world - Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, KISS) - the sounds on this album are vast. Emotive and cathartic. ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ is a sinister and moody fuck that becomes more memorable each time you venture through the tuneage on offer. An incredible listening experience that always gets my attention every time I fire it up on the iPod.
How funny- I just saw them Friday night and whole heartedly agree with your sentiment on their live acts vs their albums.
I was talking to one of my friends after the show, and musing on how you always see those music videos where the entire concert hall is just chaos, but in reality 99% of concerts are a few people in a pit and a few people bobbing their heads in enjoyment- and at a Deftones concert, they actually manage to work the entire crowd up into a frenzy. I’ve seen them twice and they are great even when they are drunk and playing borrowed equipment…. but I only have a handful of songs I will go back and listen to on an album. I’ll have to check out this cd! If they come your way, do check out the tour- they played Passenger, and the entire place filled in for Maynard’s part. It was amazing.
I have to disagree with some of your views on the Deftones. I’d say their weakest album was their debut “Adrenline”. As that sounded kinda demo-ish and generic.
White Pony is the pinicle of the Deftones recorded collection so far. That album has everything really.
I can see what you mean about the live performance vs. recorded output. But no one really manages to get their live performance out in the studio. 2 different beasts really.
Saturday Night Wrist is a great album. I found it to be somewhat of a grower as I wasn’t sure about it on first listen but after a few it sunk in.
Although I have to take some offense at “Pink Cellphone”.
Actually, ‘Pink Cellphone’ is one of my fave tracks on the album so far!
I think I need to go back to ‘White Pony’ and give it another go. I have the CD here somewhere… (pile of over 2.000 CD’s in one of my spare rooms which needs to be sorted… one day!)
Now, I gotta trawl through them all to find it.
‘Saturday Night Wrist’ is def a grower, but a damn good one at that.
This is the Deftone’s best album since White Pony but I never considered them a new-metal band as you state in your review.
hmmm….i have to disagree with a fair amount of these comments, i do agree with some of it though. firstly the review was terrible. the deftones were around waaay before nu - metal started. if anything they were the (unintentional I’m sure) pioneers of nu - metal with their funky drum beats, huge guitar sounds and massive breakdowns. remember that they only put out two albums in their first 10 years as a band. they are masters of the craft. the only other band that i know of recently to have such dedication to putting out only albums of pure quality is tool.
the new album is superb. from the opening crunch of hole in the earth to the instrumental chill out of U,U,D,D etc, and pink cellphone, while slightly surprising at the end, is another classic. this album certainly does remind me of white pony but i think it also has smatterings of all of the other albums. hell yes, it is worth a long listen!
the deftones are one of the most solid and respectable metal bands of the last 20 years. this is obvious through the many stars who have wanted to part of their fabulous history.
oh, and for the record, my favourite album is around the fur