Review Summary: Introducing: 2012's most overrated album.
Deftones Koi No Yokan has garnered so much attention on Sputnik and in the music community in general recently it is unreal. Released two months ago to a large amount of critical acclaim, being heralded as the band's best release since White Pony if not their best, it has to be said that this statement is entirely unfounded. What we hear when we first listen to this album is nothing more than the poster child of an overrated, overhyped album that falls flat on its nose when it can not stand up against the pressure of trying to live up to what people have come to expect from it. Deftones have never produced the most diverse, musically interesting of releases out there but Koi No Yokan takes a minimalistic approach and then cuts the variety and generally interesting moments in two. Where we at least had a listenable release with something such as their self titled album, saturday night wrist or white pony, here we have a snooze fest on an unnameable scale. This album plods along at a slow, uninteresting pace and remains dull for its duration.
Chino's vocals nearly saved this release as this is his strongest performance to date. He uses his clean vocal range for the most part which is a saving grace as his harsh vocals have never been strong to say the least. His voice on this album is as good as can be found, with an element of desperation and also conviction in the tones he takes. On Leathers he attempts to shift it up and use his harsher vocals but it really does not work and this song has not got enough going on to make it stand out. The guitar work on here uses the same style of ultra down tuned riffs and slow tempos throughout and it is not done interestingly with any form of enjoyable musicianship to be found. Instead what we have is more and more of the same across each of the albums songs and every time it fails to hold the listeners interest. The keyboards are nowhere near to being a saving grace as they are not integrated properly into the music. Instead it sounds as though most of the band wanted to use the guitars as the driving force, and Frank Delgado argued and tried to do things his own way and as such nothing slots together properly. Instead it sounds disjointed throughout. The keyboards on their own may have been good as they do at least have some sense of rhythm and a little diversity to them but just don't fit with this album/
This is not a down right terrible album, but more an album that has fell victim to being overhyped to a ridiculous degree and is, as such, a complete disappointment. Were there more going off with the musicianship then perhaps it would be more listenable but every song sounds exactly the same. it has the annoying electronic sounds dilly-dallying round throughout and the same chugging riffs all the way through that over-use open strings in ways that would make even Korn blush. Chino's vocals are a salvation of forms but not enough of one, and this stands out as 2012's most overrated album.
