Deftones, the fourth album from the Sacramento, CA quintet of the same name, was released early in the summer to somewhat mixed reviews. Some critics thought it sounded bored, as though the band members simply threw it together at the last minute. Others were astounded at the album?s combi-nation of bombast and simplicity. Now that the album has had some time to sink in, both sides are decid-edly correct.
It was no secret that during the recording sessions for 2000?s White Pony, Guitarist Stephen Carpenter and singer-guitarist Chino Moreno were often at odds over the direc-tion the music would be taking. Carpenter wanted to write a straight heavy metal album, while Moreno leaned toward a softer, more me-lodic sound. The resulting com-promise was at once angst-ridden and haunting, as the two emerging sides of the band blended together almost seamlessly.
Deftones shows a clear division between Carpenter?s heavy, pound-ing riffs and Moreno?s somewhat more artistic melodies. Each band member?s influence is clear on all of the tracks, except for all-purpose member Frank Delgado, who is usually completely inaudible save for turntables on ?Lucky You? and the piano-driven ?Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event,? but it is clear who wrote each song within the first few seconds. Only ?Bloody Cape? seems as much of a collaboration as anything on White Pony. The main riff is heavy and obnoxious, but Moreno maintains a calm melody until the last thirty seconds of the track, where he lets loose his trademark scream over an even heavier riff.
The lack of collaboration is no more a liability, however, than the compromises on White Pony were; the sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde dynam-ic between Carpenter and Moreno shakes the album up before it has a chance to sound stale.
The real issue is the simplicity of some of the arrangements. On White Pony, and even more so on 1997?s Around the Fur, the band ex-perimented with background noise and sonic landscapes in between brutal guitar assaults. White Pony?s ?Feiticiera? even experimented with song structure: the song has no chorus. On Deftones, the Deftones have abandoned much of their ex-perimentation, and the simplicity of the songs causes some of them to stagnate, as in ?Battle-axe,? which languishes in a relatively lifeless chorus riff. Moreno?s vocal stylings add just enough interest to keep the song afloat. ?Hexagram,? too, fea-tures a very basic chord progression over a slightly disjointed time sig-nature and Moreno screaming his head off from start to finish. ?Lucky You? isn?t quite as successful; this gloomy electronic experimenta-tion backfires a bit, as it doesn?t fit in well with the rest of the album?s far more organic sound.
Deftones? biggest surprise is ?Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event,? the first piano ballad the band has recorded. This time the gamble pays off. The song, with gentle piano and soaring vocals, is just edgy enough to be successful.
In the future, the Deftones might do well to spend more time on the underlying sonic textures they?ve employed in the past, and perhaps add some more interest to the songs. Nevertheless, as much as some of the songs sound phoned in, Deftones is nonetheless a solid