deftones

Record #981: ††† – Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

One of my favorite subgenres is Chino Moreno side project.

For all the praise he gets as a metal vocalist, the Deftones frontman has made a considerable amount of noise across the years about how his musical center is actually pretty far from metal, preferring acts like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, and the like.

This push and pull of Chino’s more melodic sensibilities to the band’s heaviness is a big part of what makes Deftones so compelling, but there’s something special that happens when he leaves his bandmates to experiment with other sounds. In fact, my own path to the Deftones started with Palms, his project with former Isis members.

But usually, these side projects are one offs. Until last year when his project Crosses released a completely delicious follow up.

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2020 Year End

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For all of the personal, political, and global calamity of the hellacious year that was 2020, there was a lot of great music that came out. Like…a LOT. 

It makes sense: with tours, festivals, and live shows canceled, most bands turned to the studio instead. The result is perhaps the most challenging year to quantify into a nice, neat list.

But that hasn’t stopped me from trying.

And while I often cop out and just make a list of all the music I’ve purchased, this year is difficult because I’ve purchased all of this music this year, on one format or another.

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The Worst Debuts From Great Bands

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s a certain art to a good debut.

On the one hand, the debut has to be captivating enough that it can stand as a self sufficient statement on its own. On the other, there has to be enough untapped potential to keep future releases from getting stale. It’s generally a bad idea to just keep releasing the same record over and over again.

But sometimes, even great artists whiff it at their first at-bat. In fact, some of the artists responsible for some of the most gorgeous music ever started their careers with albums that barely have even have a glimmer of what they would go on to create.

Disclaimer: not every album on this list is bad per se. They just fail to offer any sort of representation of what the band would be capable of.

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Record #717: Deftones – Ohms (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

It took me a while to get into the Deftones. The ebbs and flow of my opinion of them are well-documented on my social media: a few years ago, I took it upon myself to figure out how I felt about them once and for all, and dove headlong into their discography, taking detailed track by track notes of each album, which shift between aggressive alternative metal and dreamy shoegaze. Their discography sometimes feels like a fight between these extremes, heavy riffs sitting uneasily against the more billowing songs on the tracklist.

But here, Deftones frontman and admitted The Cure fanboy Chino Moreno opens the record singing, “I’ve finally achieved balance.” And then the band spends an entire album proving that they’ve one just that. Over thirty years into their career, Ohms might be the most cohesive and consistent record in their catalog.

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Top Ten Metal Albums For People Who Think They Don’t Like Metal

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Heavy metal is a rich genre, but to the casual listener, it often just sounds like a bunch of noise. The blistering riffs, machine-gun drums, and screaming vocals can send many people running as far away as they can. And for a long while, that included me.

But, through a fortuitous string of events, I discovered that I love metal, with all of its raw power and crushing beauty.

But there are many metal records that offer all of the same heaviness with a healthy dose of conventional beauty. If you’ve been curious about metal, here are ten albums that offer all the power of heavy metal without all the chaos. Continue reading →

Record #437: Deftones – White Pony (2000)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
It seems fitting that in 2017, a year that saw me obsessively dive into the Deftones’ catalogue to determine if I like them or not (spoiler: I really, really, really, really do), it’s fitting that my last purchase of the year would be White Pony, the record most people regard as their magnum opus.
Listening to the melodic, shoegaze-influenced alternative metal of Koi No Yokan or Gore, there’s very little to suggest that Deftones was ever a rap-metal group. That trajectory is thanks to White Pony, the record that eschewed the nu-metal of their peers and becoming one of the best alt-metal bands in the business.
This change was in large part due to the group’s new emphasis on atmosphere and melody. Songs like “Digital Bath,” “Knife Prty,” and the eternal “Change (In the House of Flies)” made great use out of a quite-loud dynamic that became the blueprint for many of the group’s best songs. “Rx Queen,” “Teenager,” and the first half of “Pink Maggit” saw them using a quieter palette than ever before. “Teenager” even had electronic drums and acoustic guitars!
While there are no raps on this record, the band hadn’t completely shed their nu-metal skin. Some of the riffs are still drenched in hip-hop swagger—”Elite” in particular. But even these songs haven’t aged as poorly as most of their contemporaries. While songs like “Freak on a Leash” and “Nookie” sound like embarrassing time capsules, most of  White Pony sounds practically modern.
Which is good news, because I can’t stand rap rock anymore.

Record #397: Deftones – Koi No Yokan (2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
I’ve come a long way. Just two months ago, I was taking notes through Deftones’ discography, trying to figure out if I actually liked them or not.
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Now, I’ve purchased my fourth record from their catalogue. Pretty safe to say I dig them…
But the difficult thing with a band like Deftones is that their material is so consistent that it’s hard to quantify their albums in any sort of way. Since White Pony (next on my purchase list), all of their offer the same blend of (surprisingly enjoyable) numetal aggression with blissed out shoegaze atmospheres. Their earlier albums spent their track lists doing one or the other, sometimes in jarring juxtapositions. But their more recent works expertly meld the two extremes of their work into cohesive songs.
Koi No Yokan is one of the most laid back albums in their catalogue, but it is by no means toothless. Despite the synths and atmospheric textures that coat the record, this album absolutely rips.
After an ambient intro, “Leathers” smashes into an ear-splitting numetal verse. I was initially turned off by this track. Until I reached the chorus, which finds Chino singing one of the most desperate melodies of his career. “Gauze” likewise starts with a rhythmic heavy metal riff, before opening up into a wall of shoegaze noise in the chorus. On the other end, “Tempest” starts in a plodding march, before catching fire four minutes in and exploding.
And while, admittedly, this is Deftones trick, that doesn’t mean it ever gets stale. These guys are masters of their scene for a reason. And throughout this album, they offer absolutely no clues that they were ever a radio metal staple.
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They do however, offer “Entombed,” which is among my favorite songs ever. A shoegazy metal ballad filled with atmospheric synths and a chilled out tapped guitar line? Sign me up.

Record #393: Deftones – Gore (2016)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
Not many late-90s/early 00s nu-metal bands are currently releasing albums this compelling.
​But as I’ve discovered lately, Deftones isn’t like most of their contemporaries. Their penchant for lush shoegaze and soaring melodies overshadowed their rap-metal tendencies over a decade ago. And since, they’ve only continued to create beautifully melodic alternative metal that doesn’t skimp on the punishment…
And their most recent effort, last year’s Gore, might be their most balanced release (notice that this, Deftones, and Saturday Night Wrist all made it into my collection ahead of White Pony. So save it).
While the group’s ballads have always been thick on the ambiance and melody (see: “Digital Bath,” “Change (In the House of Flies)”), their heavier tunes have often felt tied to their dated roots—even on albums as recent as Diamond Eyes. On Gore, however, the only 90s ghost haunting about is the tuneful, Hum-like space rock that informs “Pittura Infamante” and “Xenon.”What’s perhaps more remarkable is that while older Deftones albums had a (mostly) clear line between heavy and melodic tracks, Gore manages to do both at the same time (better than Saturday Night Wrist, better than Kai No Yokan). Opener “Prayers / Triangles” is the perfect example of this.
But even the heavier tunes have a melodic core. “Doomed User” chugs through alternating measures of five and six, until a melodic chorus breaks through like a ray of light. “Geometric Headdress” finds Chino screaming his head off, but the refrain (complete with an incredible off-time drum beat) is as soaring a melody as “Digital Bath.”
On the same token, the melodic tracks also have a bit of bite to them. “Hearts / Wires” alternates between some of the softest moments on their catalogue with soaring, punishingly heavy choruses. “Phantom Bride” follows up one of the most chilling ballads of their career with a break of heavy, heavy riffage.
All of this makes for what is not only one of the shining moments of Deftones’ career, but one of the finest pieces of alternative metal ever released.

Record #392: Deftones – Saturday Night Wrist (2006)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
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.