DEFTONES

Recently I've been exploring and reacquainting myself with the Deftones since they finally put out a new album. An ex-friend of mine introduced me to them when I was in college and it opened me up to that hard shit that gets through to me. Because there's a lot of hard screaming music, that adults rightly laud as NOISE, but Deftones can't be put in any real category. They're noise that makes sense, eh? Oh, I just don't think I could describe it, I would end up sounding like a fangirl.

Nate got me their newest album for my birthday and I admit I was hesitant at how it was gonna play out because I knew that the making of this album became a fiasco since their bassist Chi Cheng got in a car wreck and has been in a coma ever since. This is what brought me the most hope looking him up on Wikipedia:

Chi Cheng has showed significant signs of improvement, as he is able to track individual people with his eyes, occasionally make worded responses, and slightly move his hands.[citation needed] Chino Moreno has stated that the Cheng family will be paying a doctor experienced in the field of coma and trauma patients to use an experimental medicine to bring Chi out of his coma-like state. The treatment has an 85% success rate.[citation needed]

It makes me upset to think about it honestly, because I love this band. And as we all know, when you start loving something things go a little haywire in the rationality dept. But I'm hopeful, because Chino (lead singer quoted in above quote) is hopeful, that some sort of progress has been made. But I can't help but think of The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Ughhhhhh anyways, he's the dude in this video that's slinging his dreads around playing bass all viciously (he's in the far left corner). This is one of my favorite songs off their old albums. I love how Chino explores the divide between male/female in his lyrics.



And honestly, at first listen, I was not all that impressed with the title track from their new album. But I cannot know if it's because of my bias knowing the band's situation. After a couple listens, this is one of the main songs on the album that gets stuck in my head. And if you don't like Deftones, then fuck you, you just read most of this post, you masochist.

Here's Diamond Eyes, off their new album:



Conclusion - the new album is really quite good, on par with their last album, but imbued with upsettedness for me because Chi didn't play bass on it. No knocks to the stand-in guy. Good job to him.