Review Summary: A complete and utter in-justice from a band that many have come to trust and rely on more than others.
The Deftones’ self-titled fourth major-label release from Maverick is dreadful and unlike any other entry they have logged in their career. Opener “Hexagram,” and single “Minerva” may deceive the listener into believing the group has prepared a hard-hitting majestic masterpiece, but beyond those cuts, this record comes off as a severe creative-drought.
No performer in the bunch randomly lets up or any phenomena like that, but the song-writing is bland and tasteless. Yes, “Hexagram” is a wild beginning and one of the band’s strongest tracks, but “Needles and Pins,” is droning and quite noticeably less flowing than nearly every cut the Deftones have released prior. Its motif is recited almost entirely throughout, causing a painful headache near its finish, and its attempt at catchiness is effortless. “Minerva” then provides a sigh of relief immediately following, as the group returns to the naturally flowing beauty that graces its well-known signature style and earlier records. This beauty must be savored however, because afterward is “Good Morning Beautiful,” essentially another “Needles and Pins” grinding its mid-tempo and simplistic main riff far past the point of acceptable tolerance and taking a rather shallow stab at catchiness once again that falls flat on its face.
First-time listeners of the record may have the mindset at this point that they’ve heard two great songs and two unexpectedly mediocre tracks, so what is to come is a coin toss that was called on one side (it doesn’t matter) and landed flat on the other. “Deathblow,” is most certainly NOT the worst of what’s to come on this record, but it doesn’t make the conditions any more satisfying than they’ve already been. Again the group strays a mid-tempo rhythm across an absolutely dreadful melody that often sounds like the thing a teenager would’ve written on their own. “When Girls Telephone Boys,” sounds like it was written with a prompt that said, “This is going to be the record’s really heavy song,” which draws from it actually coming off as heavy. They build on tension and suspense that literally doesn’t see any sort of release or reward.
The record offers a bit more redemption in, “Bloody Cape,” but not much, merely resorting to what we’ve come to expect from them. “Lucky you,” and, “Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event,” are the cookie-cutter entries that emphasize the role of DJ Frank Delgado, residing on only recorded beats and Moreno’s croons/screeches. Both of these tracks lack substance, and if it hasn’t been made apparent yet, this is a key moment for the listener to realize aside from 3-4 tracks, this entire record plays like a clunky broken motor that, not only isn’t firing on all cylinders, but running on low-grade fuel. Even the closer, where the Deftones do not fail on any other record (Past and Future) “Moana,” is over without realizing its hook or that it was even the final track. It provides no aura that it is the album’s end, and it blends in all too well with the rest of the repetitive and un-creative pollution that is recorded on this album.
Thankfully, records that follow this one rob any gambler that bet against the group, with a strong and continuous return to form, but this record is simply unjust. It stands out like a sore thumb in their discography, and is no doubt their worst major-label release. Double the sadness when one realizes they didn’t attach any name to it other than their own.
