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Let's talk about Deftones

When I was a kid I exclusively listened to one band. They essentially defined my childhood with puncturing screams, vicious riffs and raps over the nu-metal cacophony that made my little 12-year-old fists want to punch various household objects.

It laid down the groundwork for a very angst-ridden teenage era that, looking back, was beneficial in terms of appreciating music. Even as a small little dude that looked up music videos on Yahoo Music in 2002 — this band was the master of cheesy, vague lyrics that would convey various shades of the same recycled, angry emotions.

However, it didn't detract from what I was feeling. There were bursts of endorphins every time I jammed their albums, which was often. I slowly garnered my parents to tolerate the screaming riffs and abrasive rapping. Unfortunately, I've found this band has lost its way over the past decade-and-a-half, turning me from fan to weird skeptical nu-metal critic, one that I don't really want to be.

This band is not Deftones. I really don't want to admit this, but it's Linkin Park. But I like to think the same description still kind of applies.

Because Deftones are an extroverted Linkin Park on an absurd amount of sensory enhancement drugs. Their quiet parts are more cryptic and somber, their loud parts are def-ening (ha) and the screams are sharper, excruciating to receive.

Deftones are the perfect gateway drug to metal because they exemplify (used to, at least) all the things about metal that made metal... metally. The genre doesn't have to be all screaming, all power chords, all ridiculous indulgent hyper-drumming — it can be quiet at times, and that's, like, totally fine man.

Metal should be about conveying particular, genuine kinds of anguish and hatred. It's a simulacra of physical pain, and because of what it tries to paint emotionally, it's kind of, sort of, almost, the “realest” genre.

Whatever that means.

Part 1: Tone deaf

Deftones formed in the early '90s but their most well-known lineup was forged in 1999:

  • Chino Moreno on vocals
  • Stephen Carpenter on lead
  • Chi Cheng on bass
  • Abe Cunningham on drums
  • Frank Delgado on turntables

Yeah, it's pretty much Linkin Park — although it's probably incorrect to acknowledge it that way, as Deftones precede the existence of LPs by a few years.

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Rapping and screaming duties are manned by Moreno, who also adds his signature vocal tricks into the mix. He is famous for his cryptic, distorted whispers that, among other things, are just extraordinarily creepy. Often you don't know what he's saying, but it's probably not about a jovial romp through a flower garden.

In some ways, that's the core of the Deftones sound. As pretentious and conceited as Moreno was, no one was creeping people out the way he was in the late '90s.

The first three Deftones albums, “Adrenaline” (1995), “Around the Fur” (1997) and “White Pony” (2000) almost revolve around these sickening lullaby vocal melodies, rapidly evolving into hemorrhaging, bloody screams.

“Around the Fur” was the main offender in that regard, and oh my god do I love that album. Stop reading this and go listen to “Rickets” to hear what I'm talking about. The vocals thrive in bipolarity wherein there's no middle ground between the creepy mumbling and the abrasive shouting.

Moreno's delicate croons make the songs even harder; he went softer to sound heavier. Not a lot of artists do that.

I can't believe I'm writing this, but remember that scene in “Cars” where Lightning McQueen has to turn left to go right? Then he wins the race because he drifted around the turns and everyone's all like “wow that was crazy”? Deftones were Tokyo Drifting their way through the metal scene in the early 2000s.

Tracks like “Headup,” “Lotion” and their famous track “My Own Summer” still hold up 20 years later. “White Pony” expanded on their early sound twofold, and scuttled slightly into trip-hop, which the Deftones would go on to incorporate much more later on.

If the band retired after they made this record, it'd be a cornerstone...for the time at least. Personally I find it one of their less cohesive works, but it rightfully achieved a spot on the airwaves. They were trying on new shoes and breaking them in, with songs like “Rx Queen” and “Change,” which, by the way, I still don't get. How is “Change” the most popular Deftones song? It's not really that interesting, even for mainstream audiences it's so sluggish and doesn't really go anywhere. It's not even that catchy either. It's good at conveying it's strange, desperate sadness that it's going for — but was that what the charts wanted back then? Apparently so.

Anyway, moving on, into a time where things get weird.

Part 2: Things get weird

Deftones released three more records in the 2000s: “Deftones” (2003), “Saturday Night Wrist” (2006) and “Diamond Eyes” (2010). The band adopted the moniker “The Radiohead of Metal” before the latter album, which is kind of accurate, but not really.

However, all the work they've released unto 2010 coincides with the point I'm trying to make here, especially with these last three albums. Deftones are extremely well-versed and refined in conveying “pain,” and I think that's a good way to define the genre altogether, or at least the tone it's going for.

Moreno's screams make it sound like he is in actual, visceral, physical pain; there's something about how genuine it is that elevates the whole playing field.

I might sound sick and screwed up, but I value this sense of authenticity. If he was in actual pain of course it'd be horrible and unlistenable, but the fact that he's not makes it artistic. That's the distinction. Artists like Cradle of Filth are considered to be “more” metal than Deftones, yet do not convey that same, earnest sense of pure, lucid anguish.

On their self-titled record in 2003, check out a song titled “When Girls Telephone Boys.” The dissonant guitar chords totally accentuates Moreno's distorted shrieks, who knocks it out of the park to paint this real, throbbing portrait of hatred.

He's throwing his body away in the recording, you can almost hear his throat in how dense these screams are. The banshee wail he hits almost exactly halfway into the song is why people hold him up as a righteous vocalist, though he has very much fallen off since then. It's unnerving; it strikes discomfort in the listener which, I can imagine, is the point here.

The opening track, “Hexagram,” exhibits the same sickness in a slightly different manner. The nauseating chorus is an ostinato of two words, “worship” and “play,” ramming off each other, out of time, to vividly convey indecisiveness.

Duty versus hedonism, a perpetual war in one's mind, a battleground that grips the gears of contentedness and slowly rips them apart. The song's protagonist can't make up their mind, in real time, and because the vocal rhythm isn't even there, it sounds even more real. It’s as though Moreno just walked into the vocal booth and vomited what was weighing him down.

It's a moment captured in such a real way. Their songs, at least at one point, were just so profoundly genuine.

Credit where credit is due, though. They don't get a free pass — “Minerva” is a bad song.

Part 3: Metal doesn't age like wine

Bassist Chi Cheng was in a fatal car accident after the release of “Saturday Night Wrist,” but subsequent releases “Diamond Eyes” (2010) and “Koi No Yokan” (2012) stay true to the band's core sound.

The first half of the former record is on point, and though the latter went in a very different direction in terms of production, it still holds up.

I've been praising Moreno a lot. Though if you're reading between the lines I'm not his number one fan. Carpenter and Cunningham deserve high praise, especially on these last two albums. Songs like “Rocket Skates,” “Royal,” “Leathers” and “Rats!Rats!Rats!” are, instrumentally, absolutely insane.

“CMND/CTRL” uses this weird interchanging meter from four counts, to five counts, back to four, etc. and it's genius. It's so catchy, and garners for multiple listeners just by its very nature of being hard to understand. However I can't seem to beat around the bush any longer. Now, in 2017, there are three things in the way of Deftones progressing further:

  1. Their live performances.
  2. Their latest album “Gore” (2016).
  3. Sergio Vega.

Let's start with the first one. Can someone please tell me what the hell happened to Deftones? Like, they always used to be somewhat sloppy, the nature of the content is quite disposed to it. As well as the jumping and energy they had, like in Bizarre fest in 2000, it's hard to play on point when you're moving around on stage. I get that.

Now, though, I don't know if they're getting old, or lazy or both. Look up their set at Riot Fest in Chicago 2016, or Lollapalooza 2011. Do they have a sound guy that follows them around and just destroys their live mix? The former might as well just be renamed to “kick drum, the concert,” and at Lolla the mic is eight times as loud as anything else. It completely ruined the song “Elite,” whose chorus, ideally, has an awesome filter over Moreno's vocals.

I guess someone got off work early that day. In fact...yeah we're gonna talk about this real quick.

Let's jump to the third point for a second. Sergio Vega is the bassist that replaced Cheng after his death in 2013. His backup vocals are horrendous and, for some reason, turned up way too loud at live performances.

This wouldn't be a complaint if this happened like once or twice — but why almost all the time? Like, I know I'm not at these shows physically, but you can hear it all throughout the videos. Fans look at these videos to appreciate their music and right now Deftones are acting like robots in Westworld that are discovering their own sentience instead of actually friggin' performing.

In the meantime, “Gore” is just far too deep in their comfort zone. It's hardly metal by any means and only one song, “Phantom Bride,” feels like it was written in the aforementioned sense of ingenuity.

The album is noted for being created when the band had some internal tension, which partly explains the lack of cohesion in the records pacing. Also, Vega had a much more active part in the songwriting so take that how you will.

Many of these songs fall short of previous standards set by the group: the screams don't feel genuine, the riffs aren't offset and driving. If anything they sound like b-sides. I guess “Geometric Headdress” stands out enough, but songs like “Pittura Infamante” and “Acid Hologram,” what are they trying achieve there?

There's nothing from Deftones' past endeavors keeping this record together, and yet they're not even trying anything to do new either, which I'd at least somewhat respect. All they've been meticulously tinkering with — the passionate growls and whispers, the energy and the catchy, angry melodies, the methods they've perfected and could've used as a jumping off point to something actually really awesome and crazy — it's wasted potential.

I just needed to rant. To set the perspective straight, take a look at their track record. If every seven albums we get one bad one, that's all fine by me.

Deftones are so refined in making listeners uncomfortable, in channeling all the darkness people have inherently in our weird little monkey brains, that I haven't lost my faith in them yet.

Looking back to when my phase was at its apex about three or four years ago, I recall vivid elation; I was spoiled rotten with all this ferocious, dense discography of agony. To whatever endeavor they go forth and attempt, to those that they'll infatuate on the way, and to eager listeners yearning to vicariously feel the angst, I raise to them my broken metal wine glass and say, “Congrats, you've finished this article. Go listen to Deftones.”

Audrin Baghaie is the music editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at dailylobomusic@gmail.com or on Twitter @AudrinTheOdd.  

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