Review Summary: Hey, who spilled this pink all over my Deftones?
Expectations of a new album from any band vary depending on the line of work the band has established over the years. Bands with a distinctive sound and a strong tradition of sticking to their best assets are usually expected to keep up their brand of music on par with previous outings. Bands that rely primarily on songwriting consistency are expected to deliver quality material on a compositional level. Bold and experimental collectives are supposed to explore previously uncharted territory with hopefully exciting results.
Deftones is not only a band with a sound, chiseled in stone for years to come, but also the band who’s released some of the most emotionally engulfing and memorable melodies in alternative metal for the past two decades, drenched in dreamy romantic atmosphere of distanced observant melancholy, spiced with careful doses of heads-to-the-wall aggression. And even after the unfortunate passing of the original bassist Chi Cheng, Deftones managed to prove to themselves and everyone else their indisputable relevance with 2010’s Diamond Eyes, which showed a reinvigorated, vital approach to their trademark songcraft. The follow-up to that, 2012’s Koi No Yokan, while generally received with almost as much praise, failed to leave a comparable impression on me. Apart from a couple of genuinely inspiring melodies here and there, that album on the whole sounded like a band on autopilot, shamelessly taking advantage of the loyalty of their core fanbase and not putting nearly as much energy into music.
Enter “Gore”.
As soon as the first single “PrayersTriangles” hit the net, a new pattern became apparent. A lighter, cleaner sound with way more space than before, emphasis on texture and a stronger shoegaze influence than expected – all that signaled that Deftones were at least trying to dilute their formula, even though by simply applying heavier shades of what was already in it. The following release of “Doomed User” caused some head-scratching with its application of almost heavy-metallic riffing to the familiar melodic flavors and left even more intrigue. And, as it happened with almost every Deftones release, all that makes complete sense only when the album has been listened in its entirety.
What becomes apparent immediately is the band’s genuine effort to appear as lively and energized as possible. Never before on a Deftones record have there been so many major-key melodies, spacey flourishes and that much… pink. Yeah, that might seem like a meaningless statement but every song on “Gore” sounds absolutely in sync with the cover art of the album. Warm melodies and production instantly invoke images of sunset and sunrise observed from seashore, with a light breeze ruffling your hair and making every breath of air a bit more satisfying. This energy manifests itself in many details on the album, be it the impressive depth of mellow shoegaze on “Acid Hologram”, the bouncy, danceable verses of “Geometric Headdress”, the dynamic shifts on the monolithic “HeartsWires” or the jittery, nervous clattering of the title track.
But details are only as good as the big picture that encompasses them. And, unfortunately, there’s no second coming to be found on “Gore”. There’s not a melody, not a hook, not a line here that could stand up on the same level of awesomeness as those scattered across the more refined entries in Deftones’ back catalogue. Some come close to capturing the glory days, like the aforementioned “HeartsWires”, even though it has an uncanny resemblance to the monstrous chorus of “Rosemary” from 4 years before, and the unexpectedly dreamy hook on “Doomed Lover” but it’s still no “Digital Bath”, “Change” or “You’ve Seen The Butcher”.
Then again, after delivering a rather stale albeit competent effort in 2012, Deftones manage to come off pretty passionate about what they do on “Gore”. A sense of purpose and vision is very much present, the mood is coherent and consistent throughout the record, and some of the left hooks – the biggest of those being the graceful dirge of “Phantom Bride”, complete with a moving solo from none other than Alice In Chains mainman Jerry Cantrell – slightly catch you off guard at first only to settle perfectly into their environment.
On the whole, “Gore” is a well-made, energetic addition to Deftones’ discography, far from reaching the cosmic grandeur of some of their past work but eminently enjoyable in its own right.
