In my quest to figure out how I feel about Deftones, I got the feeling that Saturday Night Wrist was a low point in the group’s career. So I ignored it for a while.
​That, my friend, was a mistake…

Because in my opinion, Deftones is at their beat when they’re mixing their ear-splitting metal chops with blissed out shoegaze. And nowhere do they do that better than on Saturday Night Wrist. This album spends the least amount of time chugging through nu-metally riffage. Instead, this album’s musical center is closer to My Bloody Valentine than Korn.
And it pays off.
Opener “Hole in the Earth” soars through a bombastic 6/8 signature. “Beware” is an ominous ballad that breaks into some of Chino Moreno’s most transcendent vocals. “Cherry Wave” out shoegazes even “Minerva.” “U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start,” the group’s only instrumental track, is a brilliant work of ambient math rock.
These sorts of transcendent tracks are exactly what makes Deftones stand above their contemporaries. And while (almost) every Deftones record has some dated, aggro-metal to slog through, this album has the lowest concentration. Instead, the weakest moment here is a vulgar monologue over a full-on electronica track.
​And if that’s the only thing keeping this album from being perfect, I don’t get the hate.