Deftones

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

..And he said in an interview that Team Sleep is alive and well!

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Nice! They're way ahead of the curve if they already have six or seven songs being worked on. Hopefully around this time next year we're reading all the internet studio engineers bitching without merit about the production on a new album..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

I think the reason it doesn't get more love is because its their heaviest most extreme record (which is why I love it).....I always love when a band follows up their biggest breakthrough album with a wtf/extreme record....Its what Faith No More did with Angel Dust and what Trent did with The Fragile and what Deftones did with ST....Around The Fur and White Pony brought forward a lot of posers and people who just wanted to hear ballads or 'Be Quiet and Drive Part 2" or 'Change Part 2" or 'Digital bath Part 2"....And they could have easily sold out and did another WP with a bunch of smooth songs with Chino singing....Instead they just went balls to the wall with the heaviest, rawest songs they had ever written. Chino screaming his head off in almost every song. They literally didnt give a fuck around that time. Just such a raw abrasive 'fuck you' type of album.....A middle finger to everyone who wanted White Pony 2...Its by far my favorite album of theirs....I think they are down on that era because of the massive drug use they ALL were involved in at that time.....Its my fav Deftones era....

I like S/T more than WP, but both albums land in the bottom half of my top 8 Deftones albums. My only problem with S/T is the same one I've had since the first time I heard it: it sounds all over the place stylistically. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; Hexagram, WGTB, Deathblow, Battle Axe, Pins & Needles and Bloody Cape are all top shelf. It's just that the album never feels as cohesive as other albums like ATF, KNY or Diamond Eyes do. I know Chino hates a lot of those songs because he was in a dark place at the time and doesn't want to go back there, which is understandable..

That's why I love SNW so much. It's the clear anomaly in their discography and easily their most atmospheric, which is no small feat when it has albums like KNY and S/T on either side of it. They were pretty much fucked at the time they made it, but it still sounds amazing and holds together remarkably for a band that was breaking apart at the time. Almost as if it's their version of Disintegration. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had they been successful in getting Ken Andrews to produce it..

One of my no-shit favorite things about a new Deftones album -- ever since SNW -- is reading all the bedroom engineers bitch and moan about how bad the album production/mixing/mastering is/will be. It made Gore so much more enjoyable to see people duping themselves into believing Matt Hyde had no idea what he was doing when he helmed its production. I guess that's why he's a professional engineer and everyone else is just bitching on the internetz, lmao..

So it has been for past Deftones albums, and so it will inevitably be for this next one. Let the good times roll..

[Archive_Reports]

I like S/T more than WP, but both albums land in the bottom half of my top 8 Deftones albums. My only problem with S/T is the same one I've had since the first time I heard it: it sounds all over the place stylistically. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; Hexagram, WGTB, Deathblow, Battle Axe, Pins & Needles and Bloody Cape are all top shelf. It's just that the album never feels as cohesive as other albums like ATF, KNY or Diamond Eyes do. I know Chino hates a lot of those songs because he was in a dark place at the time and doesn't want to go back there, which is understandable..

That's why I love SNW so much. It's the clear anomaly in their discography and easily their most atmospheric, which is no small feat when it has albums like KNY and S/T on either side of it. They were pretty much fucked at the time they made it, but it still sounds amazing and holds together remarkably for a band that was breaking apart at the time. Almost as if it's their version of Disintegration. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had they been successful in getting Ken Andrews to produce it..

One of my no-shit favorite things about a new Deftones album -- ever since SNW -- is reading all the bedroom engineers bitch and moan about how bad the album production/mixing/mastering is/will be. It made Gore so much more enjoyable to see people duping themselves into believing Matt Hyde had no idea what he was doing when he helmed its production. I guess that's why he's a professional engineer and everyone else is just bitching on the internetz, lmao..

So it has been for past Deftones albums, and so it will inevitably be for this next one. Let the good times roll..

S/T would benefit from some track list rearranging.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

It is a bit disheartening when I see bands say "well what sense does it make to put the album out if you can't support it". That to me translates to, the music don't mean shit, we just wanna get paid. I don't know. The Beatles put out their best shit when they weren't touring. Band's don't "NEED" to tour for their fans to enjoy the music.

You're right, you don't know..

And once again, @neorev slams it out of the park. Nobody buys music anymore. Touring and merch are the livelihoods of bands everywhere in the modern day. Hence why you see so many turning to Kickstarter and Gofundme, which also have their hurdles, as we've recently seen. You don't need to be involved in the music industry in any way, shape or form to understand that dropping an album and giving it zero support is about the dumbest thing a band can do..

Remember last year when they were releasing all those festival dates on their social platforms, and I said it was because they were going to be promoting new material during that time? It's all part of a business plan. Gone are those halcyon days of the mid-90s when you could sign a recording contract for $200 million like R.E.M., release a new album and not do so much as a single tour date for promotion because you have a pile of money you go to sleep on every night..

You know what really blows in this case? Those of us who have bought their albums several times over each time they release something, pay top dollar to go see them on tour multiple times, buy their beach towels and beer coolers from their official store, and now have to wait even longer for new music because the world went to shit and their means of making money to live live music is cancelled until god knows when. How many of these indie bands we love and adore so much are even going to be indie banding anymore by the time this is all over? That shit sucks..

They just wanna get paid? You and me and everyone else. The music doesn't mean shit though? That's just incredibly misguided logic, I'm afraid. Even this band's worst stuff has been created with a love and care most other bands could only dream of aspiring to..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Phantom Bride is the worst song on Gore, to me. Just completely maudlin with cringeworthy vocals from Chino. If that was the only song Stef was (mostly) responsible for creating, then I’m glad he sat in a corner for most of that album..

Pittura Infamante still makes me smile every time that opening riff kicks in. I can only imagine all the whiny Deftones purists wrinkling up their faces the first time they heard it, like someone had just ripped ass in their kitchen while their favorite meal was cooking. In a perfect world, that would have been the album opener, but Prayers/Triangles is fine as is..

Geometric Headdress is underrated as fuck. It’s like three songs in one. The dynamics in that track are some of their best on Gore..

I’m friends with Matt Hyde on Facebook and we actually had a nice conversation earlier this year, where I asked him how he felt about so many fans disliking the production on Gore. He had no idea fans had issues with it, and thought it was pretty funny, since that’s exactly how the band wanted the album to sound. I guess they would know, since they’re the band. I listen to that album on a decent pair of headphones and it sounds dense, atmospheric and involved. I can hear every instrument crystal clear. I guess it will naturally sound different though if you’re just streaming it off YouTube or Spotify from an iPad..

[Dryalex12]

Phantom Bride is the worst song on Gore, to me. Just completely maudlin with cringeworthy vocals from Chino. If that was the only song Stef was (mostly) responsible for creating, then I’m glad he sat in a corner for most of that album..

Pittura Infamante still makes me smile every time that opening riff kicks in. I can only imagine all the whiny Deftones purists wrinkling up their faces the first time they heard it, like someone had just ripped ass in their kitchen while their favorite meal was cooking. In a perfect world, that would have been the album opener, but Prayers/Triangles is fine as is..

Geometric Headdress is underrated as fuck. It’s like three songs in one. The dynamics in that track are some of their best on Gore..

I’m friends with Matt Hyde on Facebook and we actually had a nice conversation earlier this year, where I asked him how he felt about so many fans disliking the production on Gore. He had no idea fans had issues with it, and thought it was pretty funny, since that’s exactly how the band wanted the album to sound. I guess they would know, since they’re the band. I listen to that album on a decent pair of headphones and it sounds dense, atmospheric and involved. I can hear every instrument crystal clear. I guess it will naturally sound different though if you’re just streaming it off YouTube or Spotify from an iPad..

we need to trade ears cause i can hardly hear jack shit. Like for real, the only time I was able to here Sergio was in the beginning of Hearts/Wires with that small bass solo and the small noodling with Chino. I'm still pissed off how quite they mix Frank because his synth work is very underrated. Compared how the synths are mixed from White Pony to Gore and its like night and day. You can also make a dense record without blowing the shit out of the compression, ive done it many times with songs ive made. And i do listen to it with headphones with the cd copy so no, its not YouTube or Spotify or any of that.

Also, Geometric Headdress is one of the most blown out songs on the album and for whatever reason, the right side is louder than the left side. Yes, if you couldn't tell, I am a audiophile and i will keep complaining about this because it literally hurts my ears. Im pretty sure modern production has given me Tinnitus because i know it wasn't like this before.

[AndItKeepsRepeating]

we need to trade ears cause i can hardly hear jack shit. Like for real, the only time I was able to here Sergio was in the beginning of Hearts/Wires with that small bass solo and the small noodling with Chino. I'm still pissed off how quite they mix Frank because his synth work is very underrated. Compared how the synths are mixed from White Pony to Gore and its like night and day. You can also make a dense record without blowing the shit out of the compression, ive done it many times with songs ive made. And i do listen to it with headphones with the cd copy so no, its not YouTube or Spotify or any of that.

Also, Geometric Headdress is one of the most blown out songs on the album and for whatever reason, the right side is louder than the left side. Yes, if you couldn't tell, I am a audiophile and i will keep complaining about this because it literally hurts my ears. Im pretty sure modern production has given me Tinnitus because i know it wasn't like this before.

I agree, you're not alone. I have no issue with the songs on Gore, it's just the album is completely un-listenable to me because the production is so off compared to what I'm used to from them.

It's the same issue I have with the last Queens of the Stone Age album. If it's what the band wanted to sound like then great, I'm not trying to say I know better than them or that anything about it is wrong, it's just different, and my ears don't like it.

Part of what made them so interesting was the dynamic range in their songs, the riffs, the bottom end was a sonic force. Contrast that with keys, clean guitar, and Chino's ethereal vocal performances wrapped up perfectly by Abe's heavily hip/hop influence drumming, and you have a band and a sounds like no other.

Gore and this new song just sound like everything else sonically , it's all meshed together into the mid range and it's just not appealing.

But that's also just my opinion.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Those promo clips from Diamond Eyes were their best ever, hands down. Sextape, Rocket Skates, You've Seen The Butcher, the title track..there were actual stories and things happening in those videos, instead of their usual boring, pointless, largely performance-based video bullshit for other banging singles (Minerva, Hole In The Earth, Bloody Cape, Prayers/Triangles, Hexagram)..

I don't think I've ever seen a band have a boring videos to amazing singles ratio quite like this band. Whatever got into them around Diamond Eyes, their videos were suddenly some of the best in rock at the time..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Wow, didn’t know that about Team Sleep, that record opened up a lot of things for me as a younger listener - kinda put me onto a mix of more electronic influenced music that still guides me today.

Apparently, Chino has also soured on the Palms stuff, calling it "disappointing" in that recent interview that HelpmeiamsuretoloveGoreoneday posted a little while back. He tracked some heavier material with those guys and then shitcanned it to work on Ohms. There was that unbelievable stretch from 2010-2014 where we got two fantastic Deftones albums, a Palms album and a Crosses album, plus they were already working on the Gore stuff..

Then 4.5 years since Gore and nothing whatsoever, save for one admittedly brilliant Chino solo song. Dude is as mercurial towards his own work as the day is long. I fully expect that by the time they are able to tour again, the entire setlist will be ATF and DE songs with a couple Adrenaline and WP songs for an encore to appease all the Tony Hawk Pro Skater fans in attendance. Hardcore fans will be screaming for anything from SNW, S/T or KNY to complete indifference by the band right before they sleepwalk (NPI) into 7 Words for the 500,000th time..

[Jord]

Apparently, Chino has also soured on the Palms stuff, calling it "disappointing" in that recent interview that HelpmeiamsuretoloveGoreoneday posted a little while back. He tracked some heavier material with those guys and then shitcanned it to work on Ohms. There was that unbelievable stretch from 2010-2014 where we got two fantastic Deftones albums, a Palms album and a Crosses album, plus they were already working on the Gore stuff..

Then 4.5 years since Gore and nothing whatsoever, save for one admittedly brilliant Chino solo song. Dude is as mercurial towards his own work as the day is long. I fully expect that by the time they are able to tour again, the entire setlist will be ATF and DE songs with a couple Adrenaline and WP songs for an encore to appease all the Tony Hawk Pro Skater fans in attendance. Hardcore fans will be screaming for anything from SNW, S/T or KNY to complete indifference by the band right before they sleepwalk (NPI) into 7 Words for the 500,000th time..

Jesus, Palms I also have a soft spot for - some of those melodies are genuinely gorgeous, especially Shortwave Radio. I saw Deftones on the SNW tour and it was alright, but I don't really listen to much to the stuff before Self Titled, I just prefer their later output. Saw them at Leeds fest just after Diamond Eyes and it was awesome. Definitely hoping for more Team Sleep one day but whatever happens happens.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

If you listen very, very closely during the part in HITE where Chino is singing "There's a hole in the earth, I'm out.." you can hear Steph harmonizing "No vaccine's ever worked, no doubt.."

I mean, this is the same guy who has brainwashed 3/4 of the ever-so-whining Deftones fanbase and now Chino himself into thinking that Gore is a bad album, and took 4.5 years to come up with rehashed bargain basement riffs for their latest album Boredohms. Are we really surprised by any of this..?

"If you think you live on a spinning, flying space ball, you're in a cult."

Spoken like a true burnout. Great stuff, I laughed pretty hard..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

The Ohms hate is just part of a larger natural fanbase reaction; they do this with every Deftones album. They praised Gore to the high heavens when it was leaking out, and now you'd think it was the S/T Motley Crue album the way people rag on it. I knew once the honeymoon phase was over -- usually about six weeks -- that people would start shitting on Ohms, and here we are. It's just not that good compared to their other albums. It's safe, overproduced, and manages the rare feat of sounding over-labored and at the same time like it was banged out in about a month..

Even the fans on the Deftones subreddit and the large contingency of fans over at the PRP are starting to put Gore over Ohms, and rightfully so. Bad production and all, it's still a way better album as far as originality goes. At least they were thinking outside the box on that one. Ohms sounds like they picked their 10 favorite Deftones songs from the first eight albums and then ran them through an Adrenaline song app..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Whoever said Adrenaline and Like Linus are the band’s only efforts that are pushing the envelope or whatever, you seriously need to be committed..

Ohms isn’t bad. Just very safe and catering to what the fans want, and probably not really what the band wants, per se. It still amazes me that after 4.5 years, what comprises Ohms is the best they could come up with. All they are doing is repeating themselves on this record. You can’t say that about Gore, SNW or KNY, when the band was actually pushing the sonic envelope and finding new ways to take their signature sound into new dimensions. Not surprising the majority of their fanbase wasn’t into it; that was thinking-man’s metal and it’s definitely not going to resonate with everyone..

Ohms has some bangers on it, even if 3/4 of the album is just basically Gore-lite. Hexagram II Genesis, Acid Hologram Redux Headless and Hearts/Wires remix Pomeji are great, I’ll admit. If they had just cut Radiant City and Mini-WGTB This Link Is Dead, claimed the whole thing was Eros and left it at that, it would be an album fans will remember a decade from now, the way SNW has aged so gracefully..

[Wretchedest]

Whoever said Adrenaline and Like Linus are the band’s only efforts that are pushing the envelope or whatever, you seriously need to be committed..

Ohms isn’t bad. Just very safe and catering to what the fans want, and probably not really what the band wants, per se. It still amazes me that after 4.5 years, what comprises Ohms is the best they could come up with. All they are doing is repeating themselves on this record. You can’t say that about Gore, SNW or KNY, when the band was actually pushing the sonic envelope and finding new ways to take their signature sound into new dimensions. Not surprising the majority of their fanbase wasn’t into it; that was thinking-man’s metal and it’s definitely not going to resonate with everyone..

Ohms has some bangers on it, even if 3/4 of the album is just basically Gore-lite. Hexagram II Genesis, Acid Hologram Redux Headless and Hearts/Wires remix Pomeji are great, I’ll admit. If they had just cut Radiant City and Mini-WGTB This Link Is Dead, claimed the whole thing was Eros and left it at that, it would be an album fans will remember a decade from now, the way SNW has aged so gracefully..

Hi. I said that. And I meant was, at the time they made that music it was more groundbreaking for music as a whole than any of their subsequent albums related to their environments. I'm going to stand by that statement. That sound would quickly become mainstream, of course, so in retrospect it's hard to understand it that way. Deftones were an early proponent of a sound. I would say other albums in the catalogue are more experimental within the context of just Deftones.

Like Linus... There's still nothing else that sounds quite the way that does.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

07 Can't Even Drive

I'll drive. Just be quiet and breathe..

[neorev]

I'll drive. Just be quiet and breathe..

Whoops, meant this one...

[Prettybrokenspiral]

I don't know about the rest of you, but few things irritate me more than albums that start off with the best song/my favorite song on the album. It's like it's all downhill from there. Good thing there's a shuffle mode, I guess..

I only say this because I routinely see Deftones fans namedropping album-opening songs as their favorites. @Space Suicide @neorev and @billpulsipher all have several opening tracks and a few #2 tracks as your favorites. Does that irritate you guys at all, or is it just me..?

Fillow gets the award for boldest balls, namedropping Pink Cellphone as a favorite track, lmao. Don't see that one too often (I wonder why..)..

The only album I can outright recall where the first song is also my favorite is OHM by the RHCP, and that's only typical because it's the only fucking album I enjoy by Faith No More Lite the RHCP..