Deftones Megathread, All Things Deftones

[jmeezle]

The more I listen to Gore, the more I get bored with this album....is by far the worst album in their discography.

For me the biggest problem is the middle of it, starting with Geometric Headress to L(Mirl)....those 5 tracks in the middle are by far the most boring, redundant and lifeless songs ever in their catalog. The guitar work is completely bland....just power chords, and those riffs that are only octaves been played (the begginning of Pittura Infamante for example)...they always found a way to make that kind of simple songwriting and guitar work transcend their simplicity, but here they are running out of ideas and sounding completely lazy.

I think this happenned since a lot of songs were written by Chino, and then Stephen came way later in the writing proccess, and did his thing without the same inspiration of previous albums. Chino does nice stuff over Stephen guitars in previous songs, but the core of their sound comes from Stephen starting the riffs (I guess), and not Chino writing the heavy parts and starting writing the songs alone. Chino's never been a great guitar player, and it shows sometimes in his lousy vibratos (listen to the begginning of Xenom, or older songs like Riviere) and his overall raspy sound.

A track which I think is the best, and show a nice blend of evolution of their playing and songwriting is Rubicon, but it's a shame that this appears just in the last track of the record.

I may sound arrogant above, but I'm just a average guitar player trying hard to become better everyday, and I'm also a huge fan of the band since 98, when I bought Around The Fur, but after 8 albums, they are sounding tired and complacent with their style, and especially Chino and Stephen with their guitar playing.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Totally agree, this band has gotten me through some .... since I was a teenager (I'm 31 now). I'm really let down by this album.

 

[Dwellingers]

Also not diggin the album. The vocal production irritates me as hell also!

 

[Sikthness]

Hey you Deftones fans should check out Decorticate - Eros and Dihex. Cool stuff.
and lets be real here, Gore has some ok ideas going on. but

White Pony>Diamond Eyes>Koi no Yokan>>>Around the Fur>>>>>>Saturday Night Wrist>>>>S/T>>>Gore>Adrenaline

 

[TheHandOfStone]

This album seems to have really polarized people. Fantano (TND) gave it a 4/10, and the comments section there was super split.

I myself still like it quite a bit, but it's definitely not as good as KNY. I've made up my mind about that. The production hasn't really grown on me, but I still enjoy the music. (FWIW some of my favorite albums ever have objectively crappy production.)

 

[Ben.Last]

I think the split is because it's not a bad album, it's just not a good Deftones album. It's missing a lot of what's always made them special because of the power dynamic that obviously existed during the writing process.

Point blank, Chino needs to put down the guitar for this band and let Steph do what he's obviously amazing at doing.

 

[gorthul]

I like the album, but for me it is far from being as good as Koi No Yokan, which is my favourite Deftones album. Stand-Out Tracks are in my opinion Prayers / Triangles, Phantom Bride and Rubicon, the worst is in my opinion Doomed User, which sounds completely uninspired and boring to my ears.

Overall I would rate it 6-7/10. I especially miss this dreamy kind of vibe of previous releases. Could also be the mix, which some of you already mentioned...

 

[Ralyks]

Didn't realize Chino was doing most of the guitar writing. No wonder it sounds more like Palms and Crosses.

I do like Gore, but my above point makes it feel weird.

 

[wankerness]

Hey you Deftones fans should check out Decorticate - Eros and Dihex. Cool stuff.
and lets be real here, Gore has some ok ideas going on. but

White Pony>Diamond Eyes>Koi no Yokan>>>Around the Fur>>>>>>Saturday Night Wrist>>>>S/T>>>Gore>Adrenaline

Hrm. I greatly disagree that Around the Fur is better than SNW or Adrenaline, but I agree that White Pony is their best, so I wonder what my reaction is going to be. The only album of theirs I'm really lukewarm on is the S/T, but a couple songs on it have grown on me over the years. I'm going record shopping in a couple hours so I'll probably know by this afternoon!

 

[Ben.Last]

Didn't realize Chino was doing most of the guitar writing. No wonder it sounds more like Palms and Crosses.

I do like Gore, but my above point makes it feel weird.

He's not doing most of the guitar writing, but Steph was coming to the songs later on in the process, after they'd already been formed, which means that Chino's guitar parts were already somewhat in place, which I'm sure limited Steph's ability to come up with distinct stuff.

 

[KristapsCoCoo]

I love the album and don't get the hate at all.
Hate to see all the speculations about who wrote what though, considering no one from the band have actually said anything about it...
Steph and Chino always have had disagreements, but because of some .... clickbait article titles everyone now assumes that it's worse than before...

 

[Ben.Last]

I love the album and don't get the hate at all.
Hate to see all the speculations about who wrote what though, considering no one from the band have actually said anything about it...
Steph and Chino always have had disagreements, but because of some .... clickbait article titles everyone now assumes that it's worse than before...

They've openly discussed that the songs were pretty far along before Steph started contributing.

 

[KristapsCoCoo]

They've openly discussed that the songs were pretty far along before Steph started contributing.

Yeah, I know, but it's blown out of proportion by listeners.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

Hrm. I greatly disagree that Around the Fur is better than SNW or Adrenaline, but I agree that White Pony is their best, so I wonder what my reaction is going to be. The only album of theirs I'm really lukewarm on is the S/T, but a couple songs on it have grown on me over the years. I'm going record shopping in a couple hours so I'll probably know by this afternoon!

Personally, it's quite difficult to look at their catalog as an ordered set. I think of White Pony, ATF, and Adrenaline as one set and Deftones, SNW, DE, KNY as a separate set of writing. Of the albums 7, I've listened to SNW the least with the first three albums getting heavy rotation as I group up listening to those tracks. Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan get much heavier play rotation than do SNW and the eponymous albums.

I recently got my copy of Gore, ripped it, converted it, and have it loaded up for a long drive I'm going to take where there isn't an option but to listen to it from beginning to end (I still haven't listened to the whole album). Some tracks on the albums never made much sense initially (I'm thinking Teenager, Pink Cellphone and Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event), but they fit in with the albums as a whole IMO.

I'm optimistic about Gore.

 

[jwade]

Point blank, Chino needs to put down the guitar for this band and let Steph do what he's obviously amazing at doing.

Counterpoint:

Stef needs to put down the bong, and drive his ass to the band's rehearsal spot and be involved from the very beginning, instead of showing up months into the process.

 

[Ben.Last]

Counterpoint:

Stef needs to put down the bong, and drive his ass to the band's rehearsal spot and be involved from the very beginning, instead of showing up months into the process.

That's a fair point; it could be all his fault. That being said, Chino isn't living anywhere near the other guys anymore, so who knows where the early writing actually took place? And it's not as though Steph has had any problem knocking it out of the park in the past.

 

[jwade]

On a different topic, did anyone else get a strong Weezer vibe from the beginning of Pittura Infamante?

 

[Velokki]

A couple of pages back we were talking about Deftones' live performance.

Now they've done couple of really high-production value live shoots on Jimmy Kimmel, which are quite good.

Hearts/Wires:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Z4nI2wmNY

Prayers/Triangles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60RpaXx03yQ

But I gotta say, I believe there's something done to Chino's vocals in post. Not sure, but it's strange that suddenly most of the time when his voice starts to go out of pitch, he'd just return to the normal pitch. In most live takes it just goes all to hell if he loses the pitch. Either he's done a lot of practice drills and warm-ups and he's genuinely much better, or there's some post-editing in the videos. Especially in these higher profile takes such as Jimmy Kimmel, record companies surely want the best out of their bands, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if some parts were corrected in post.

Just the cynical me, haha.

 

[wankerness]

After two listens, my reaction is uh...it's alright. The incredibly wimpy sounding guitar is sort of distracting, too. It just sounds like a wall of lo-fi fuzz on some riffs. I like the first track, geometric headdress, and rubicon. I also kinda like phantom bride (apart from the terrible harmonized lead overdubs in the last chorus). I really DON'T like Doomed User, Pittura Infamante, and Xenon. The latter two in particular have some riffs that sound like the junk I wrote in high school when I first learned how to play guitar and just slid octaves around the neck haphazardly. Everything else is just kind of boring.

I'll put it on repeat in my car for a week or two and see what happens. Koi No Yokan was love on first listen, as were most of their earlier albums, so probably I'll end up sort of liking it and always thinking it's one of their least good albums. The S/T required basically forcing myself to like it apart from the first track and Bloody Cape, and this might be the same deal

 

[Daf57]

Good footage!

 

[wankerness]

Two posts up