Review Summary: Gore: an intimate dissection of the sound of Deftones and where it's headed/should go
I’ve strongly been anticipating this release, for a number of reasons; for one, after listening to White Pony for the first time only recently (very late to this party), I finally considered myself a Deftones fan; I had listened to their other albums for years before, in particular their very oldest and their very latest, but White Pony always eluded me. But after listening to it, the later albums like Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan sounded better to me as a result of this bubble of context that I think Deftones has with their sound. Also, the singles for this album - “Prayers/Triangles” and “Doomed User” in particular - sounded better to me than anything Deftones has done since the best songs on Diamond Eyes. It appeared that Deftones decided to combine the ethereal guitars and shoegaze influences from Saturday Night Wrist with the more harder elements of Diamond Eyes to make a nice combination that appeared more experimental and fun than Koi No Yokan.
And with Gore as a whole, I think I got what I wanted.
And the singles sound better in context with the album, which to me is always a good indicator of an impressively put-together album. Sonically, I noticed a lot more textured and impressive production from Matt Hyde, a lot more fluid segways from song to song, and higher-register guitar playing in contrast from the 8-string-sounding playing from previous albums. Stephen Carpenter (guitarist and songwriter) expressed his distaste in Moreno’s approach to the making of this album, but I think it’s an interesting direction that I think Deftones needed now to break away from this almost tired (or tried and true, take your pick) sound that they keep using. Every Deftones album kind of sounds the same, which isn’t a bad thing at all; all the good Weezer albums are the same album, Tool as well. But I think Deftones’ sound was becoming tired without a least some new direction, and I think we got it with Gore.
The album feels considerably cohesive as a whole; most of the cool segways between songs are bridged by deliberate static that cuts through in the last second of the song, and leaving a footprint into the next. Particularly, the second track “Acid Hologram” does this for the first time and it isn’t the last throughout the album. That track actually has a few moments of strange sound effects in the bridges between verses that I haven’t noticed in previous albums.
Chino Moreno’s vocals are also the most balanced I’ve seen since White Pony as well, which makes me happy because I’ve always more preferred the moments where he exploits his ability to sing rather than scream. His screams certainly are great and they add to the mix, searing across the mix with the lower-instrumentation, but I think his higher frequency singing is a result of the instrumentation not quite sounding as low because of the guitars. My favorite vocal performance on the album is actually the second single from this album called “Doomed User,” where he accentuates this beautiful refrain throughout the song that counterbalances the harder-going verses.
In fact, I think that balance was a goal that Deftones attempted to achieve with this album, because I notice it with the differences in songs here sonically; the heavy tracks like “Doomed User” and the title track are counterbalanced by the lighter tracks like “Xenon” and “(L)mirl” in the middle of the album. Another thing I noticed about the guitars is the constant switching from the ethereal to the visceral, especially on “Gore,” that has one of the heavier bridges, and also the lightest guitar playing on the verses. “Phantom Bride” right after is a nice track that has some impressive guitar-playing and once again some great vocals from Chino.
So with Gore, we have some of the best instrumentation and vocals in a Deftones album as a while. I like a lot of the lyrics as well; they’re angsty as ***, most notably in the heavier tracks. The opening track “Prayers/Triangles” refers to a form of slavery, which is a metaphor of a service to some higher power, or someone just simply more powerful than the protagonist. In fact, this idea of freedom in more ways than one is expressed in the lyrics throughout tracks all the way to the end with “Rubicon,” in which the power and freedom is finally harnessed.
I really enjoy listening to Gore, I’ve listened to it a few times over now. However, what I think all Deftones albums are missing after White Pony is a certain level of tension with the songwriting, as well as a little spice of creativity with riffs. Some of the tracks here have some bad riffs, simply put; I’ve noticed that the only track I’ve skipped after the second listen-through is the song “Geometric Headdress,” which seemed like an unfinished track that they threw in to have a long enough album. The chorus is nice but the sections just kind of bleed together with no real compelling musicality to it to make it interesting. The heavy tracks are fine to listen to, they’re all distinctly Deftones, especially “Doomed User” and “Gore,” and the nicer tracks are all embracing the more ethereal sound that’s the likes of Saturday Night Wrist, but I think the next thing Deftones should work on with the next effort is more compelling songwriting. I mean, they already are heading in a great direction instrumentally and sonically; the production and instrumentation, like I said, are all top-notch. Maybe just take it up one more step with creative riffs.
That being said, this is still my favorite Deftones release in some time, because it sounds very Deftones while still have a little spice of new-sounding instrumentation. And despite some of the less tense moments, I really do love the soft moments quite a bit. And it’s surprising how good the album is considering the creative rift between Carpenter and Moreno here; there’s a level of compromise that’s detectable, but Gore is a representation, a monument of this struggle. I’m very excited to see where it goes.
7.5/10
