ENTER THE WHITE PONY

White Pony alternate cover, image by author.

June 2000, daytime -- driving somewhere in America:

*click* --CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES-- *click* --ALL THE OTHER SLIM SHADYS ARE JUST-- *click* --IT'S GONNA BE MAY-- *click*

These are the sounds of driving with an indecisive finger on the radio dial in the first summer of the new century.

Twenty years isn't that long, but looking back, it's a gorge. Still pre-9/11, -MySpace, -Facebook, -streaming anything, -iPhone, etc. Cracked jewel cases were everywhere. Napster was one year in and MTV still had significant cultural and financial pull. This was the summer of sophomore releases from Britney Spears and Eminem--Oops!... I Did It Again and The Marshall Mathers LP respectively. Everything was pop.

The music of the mainstream was as bad as it had ever been (but not as bad as it would become.)

There's only a tiny chunk of music from this mini-era that holds up today. Then, American audiences were largely only offered two opposite ends of a colorless spectrum. There was Papa Roach, Creed, Kid Rock, and Korn over here. Spears, *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera and Sisqo over there.

Rock music at that point had since slithered from the entrails of grunge into this shitty beer metal pumped up with generic aggression and ripped off Nirvana riffs. Those cretins from Puddle of Mudd and Nickleback made a fortune. (dirty money) Forming its own branch off that was rap metal, an unfortunate experiment for all involved. At the same time it was also the apex of white girl pop. The legends of Spears, Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Backstreet Boys were barely dug in. Suddenly every music video had a choreographed dance routine for every verse and chorus. It was all a lot of flash and bang to cover up the low grade of songwriting being done. 

Deftones, from Sacramento, California, brought a new mood to the charts.

The five-piece band released, White Pony, their third album, that summer. It would end up an important milestone, bringing them to their highest peak to date professionally. The first single, “Change (In the House of Flies),” was released May 20, 2000, on time for summer heartbreak. Opening with a single, distracted guitar strum, the song entered the radio with new emotion, a full deep breath. Starting the week, the top 5 songs, according to the Billboard Hot 100, were: 1. "Maria Maria" by Santana; 2. "Breathe" by Faith Hill; 3. "Thong Song" by Sisqo; 4. "He Wasn't Man Enough" by Toni Braxton; 5. "I Try" by Macy Gray. They snuck in when no one was watching.

“Change” begins slowly with singer Chino Moreno in whispers and builds into a big aching chorus. The lyrics are delicately haunted, daring and sexual.  “I look at the cross / and I look away / give you the gun / blow me away,” Moreno breathes out before guitarist Stephen Carpenter scratches out the silence with metallic shriek. 

White Pony album art, with Cheng & Carpenter, by Frank Maddocks.

At this period in music marketing, the music video was still the most impactful way to reach the biggest audience.

The song was one thing, but the video could breathe new perspective and insight to create a single piece of work (if done right). Total Request Live, then, was a game changer. The popular afternoon top-10 music video countdown show was just another spotlight for the major popstars, but every now and then, lesser-known artists would creep in the list and gain some traction.

The clip for “Change,” directed by Liz Friedlander, was the perfect visual match to the song’s disenchanted feeling. The band performs the song in the corners of a party house, long past the first shots were poured and lines were drawn. Beautiful models curl along the furniture, passed out. Everything is lit by lamplight and some of the revelers hide behind masks of jungle animals. The macabre scene was just as enticing as the song’s slow ragged hooks.

I was instantly obsessed.

My friend Josh R. knew this and for my birthday got me a copy of White Pony on compact disc a week or so after its release. The silver square with the white cutout pony in the corner was like a missing piece in the tableau of my music history.

“Change” definitely made it to TRL a few times and, though I can’t outrightly prove it, I’m pretty certain it grabbed the #1 video for a day. TRL’s top 10 videos for June 2000, according to user “adoug15” on rateyourmusic.com, were: 10. "Thong Song" by Sisqo; 9. "I Think I'm In Love With You" by Jessica Simpson; 8. "Somebody Someone" by Korn; 7. "Last Resort" by Papa Roach; 6. "American Bad Ass" by Kid Rock; 5. "Oops!...I Did It Again" by Britney Spears; 4. "If Only" by Hanson; 3. "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem; 2. "The One" by Backstreet Boys; 1. "It's Gonna Be Me" by *NSYNC. Wow, what an era, honk honk.

This was the group's third time working with metal producer Terry Date. After Deftones' previous two albums, Adrenaline (1996) and Around the Fur (1997), White Pony would set them apart from other metal acts. Unlike some of their peers, they would not be pigeonholed into some formative pattern of aggression. They could expand.

Chino’s heart had always been open on songs like “Mascara,” “One Weak,” “MX” and “Fireal.”

But on White Pony he lets that thing bleed out from the carseat to the living room to the bathroom and back. On “Digital Bath,” Feiticiera,” “Passenger,” Moreno paints vivid violent imagery of drunk lust and conniving romance.

Stephen Carpenter, the group’s purveyor of grind, often namechecks the Swedish metal band Meshuggah and LA's Fear Factory as major influences. On White Pony he would find equal footing with his Cure-loving singer enough to wax heavy in all the right spots. Carpenter detunes and plays chugging riffs like Picasso's Cubist period, thick, slathered with sudden turns. He plays a 7-string and gets this thrashing higher-pitched alarm call on “Korea” and “Feiticeira.” And of course there’s “Elite,” the three-minute stabbing, which would win the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2001. [Nominees were: Iron Maiden ("The Wicker Man"), Marilyn Manson ("Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes"), Pantera ("Revolution Is My Name"), Slipknot ("Wait and Bleed")].

All of drummer Abe Cunningham’s punk energy on the first two albums, finds restraint.

His quick offbeat bursts ricochet directly off Carpenter’s riffs. His snare hits like a taser, and when a song falls into cooler atmosphere, he adds that extra fill, playing unpredictably and to the mood. The three-song suite of “RX Queen” / “Street Carp” / “Teenager” is where the sonic experimentation really sets in. Bassist Chi Cheng lays down a stealthy bassline on “RX Queen.” DJ Frank Delgado fills in the empty spaces with textured atmospherics. “Teenager” is pushed by a dusty drum beat you might hear from Pete Rock, and Moreno’s full falsetto. It’s definitely the emotional center of the album, and a place metal doesn't often venture.

The beauty of White Pony is every element of the Deftones sound speaks without talking too much or over. The wide range of influences from each member creates a glowing mix of punk, thrash and doom metal, shoegaze, trip-hop and new wave.

 

As the nu-metal era died off those bands would have to evolve their sound or risk entrapment in a niche music category.

White Pony would kick into gear the cult following Deftones have enjoyed since, and help influence a number of bands, if not full genres. Taproot, Relative Ash, Trapt and Thirty Seconds to Mars all did their best Deftones tribute act. Emo, and then screamo, would owe a debt to Deftones. My Chemical Romance, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Muse and others would bite off their style. With White Pony the band proved they could break the metal label and all of its usual trappings to create their own offshoot.

Deftones' most recent album, Gore, was their eighth. It was released in 2016. Deftones have been mixing their ninth, again, with Terry Date. It's his return working with the band since their self-titled follow-up to White Pony in 2004. Originally set for a summertime release to coincide with a headlining tour with Gojira and Poppy, the new album has been put on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak. The tour is being rescheduled for 2021 and there have been vague rumors of a new post-summer release date. 

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of White Pony, the band will be broadcasting live from their YouTube channel Saturday, June 20, 8PM Pacific Standard Time.

Korn's "Follow the Leader," 20 Years On

The year is 1998.

Jonathan Davis barks back at a speeding bullet, sending it back through gas stations, backyard birthday parties and other scenes of sweet, late-century America, in the video for Korn's "Freak On A Leash." Without a doubt, one of the finest music videos, embracing the concept of a fast-traveling bullet filmed in slow-motion as it barely misses the vulnerable. The video was a welcome bomb in the pop landscape of the late-90s.

Twenty years ago this month, Korn released their third album, Follow the Leader, a gritty metal album from the sewers of the suburbs that was as catchy as it was ugly. Lead by singer Davis, guitarists James "Munky" Shaffer, Brian "Head" Welch, bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and drummer David Silveria, Korn tore through the culture. They revived metal and turned its atmospherics darker, adding horror movie suspense with strange tunings and Davis's tortured whisperings and roarings.

In the age of Total Request Live (TRL), Britney and boy band pop, Korn managed to translate all that negative 90s energy and century-shifting panic into a long-standing career.

Korn’s rise came on the heels of Kurt Cobain's death and a burrowing sense of national discontent with the events of Rodney King, Saddam entering Kuwait, WACO, the WTC bombing, Black Hawk Down, the OKC bombing--a lot of bombings actually; the major cases of Dahmer, OJ, the killings of Tupac and Biggie, the Unabomber. It was an angry time and chaos took over nightly newscasts. Of course, this 90s anger, viewed from our deeply dug bunker today, seems fairly antiquated and chummy compared to the round-the-clock, foot-in-your-face doomcasts we constantly scroll through, but hey, we were nubiles then, not yet used to societal breakdown and senseless widespread violence in our own streets.

By the end of the decade the presidency of Bill Clinton had turned into a comic strip, which further alienated voters and broke the enchantment of government to millions of restless suburbanites. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Follow the Leader was released one year, to the week, after the debut of South Park, another hugely successful pop culture vehicle that chided the cynicism of the times into comic gold. And with Eminem’s debut, The Slim Shady LP, coming months later, it’s easy to see the culture had shifted to embrace a more confrontational means of entertainment. Korn had claimed their place.

The declarative, "It's On!" zips open Follow the Leader with an electronic gurgle made funky by Silveria's drumming.

Head and Munky trade squelching guitar effects until Davis bashes everyone’s head in growling the title. I can remember standing in confused pre-adolescent shock at the demonic garbling spewed by Davis during "Freak on a Leash." ...de-Boom de-ga-tah, Boom-do de-ga-tah… And then stupidly mimicking it with friends. As easy as it is to mock, it's still one of the most unhinged vocal performances. The song pivots with Silveria’s every whim, giving backbone to Davis's throat extrapolations.

Silveria's drumming is alive and groovy and not merely there to beef up the aggression. “Got The Life” is basically a disco beat that could be isolated and played for any Bee Gee’s song. His funky off-tempo backbeat is prime territory for Davis and other guest vocalists to rap over, but when the choruses hit, Silveria delivers with supreme bashing. He, along with Fieldy, gave Korn a rhythm section that hadn't really been explored in heavy metal. They had a punch and grind like Faith No More, but with Fieldy tuning down to Hades it sounded more hellish.

After three quick singles comes “Dead Bodies Everywhere,” arguably the best song on the album, next to "Reclaim My Place."

It’s eerie, creeping and what you might hear upon entering an abandoned playground at night. Fieldy's detuned bass and Silvera's drumming throttle around like broken toys before sharpened guitars make little jabs in your ears.

Proof of the album’s nu-metal time-arc is the deranged, "Children of the Korn," a collaboration with Ice Cube. Metal-rap. Davis sounds like Hexxus, the oil fume villain from Ferngully while lazer-shot drums and guitar-chunks claw out a rhythm. Another is the defiantly stank, "All in the Family," featuring stank overlord of the rap metal titans, Fred Durst. Certainly hard to imagine a mainstream album today with a back and forth between vocalists about rape, incest, murder and homoerotic narcissism.

"Reclaim My Place" holds the energy of a quickly burning down house.

A breakdown of tribalist drumming and heat-rising guitar effects leads to Davis lashing out the age-old question, "What the fuck!?" A growing tradition for Korn album-closers, "My Gift to You," is a complete detonation of Davis's inner gargoyle. "I hate you!" he screams against a slow-bludgeoning thrash, relentless in its grasp, as circus music and hollowed out echoes creep in the background mix.

Of the metal acts to break through the mainstream in the late-90s and early-2000s, Korn found a way to stay there far outpacing Limp Bizkit, Staind, System of a Down, Slipknot, Deftones and others of the era. (With only Korn and Deftones (maybe Slipknot?) having held onto a respectable career since.) Their next album, Issues, would cap off the band's definitive era with Follow the Leader, Life is Peachy and their self-titled debut in 1994 preceding. In the eight albums since Follow, Korn has taken bold steps to try and reinvent their token sound, working with Skrillex and other EDM artists on The Path to Totality, exchanging producers, labels, members, but on Follow the Leader everything for Korn was clicking right on schedule.

The Year's 5 Greatest Albums

   2016 was a huge year for new music. Mainstream headliners like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wilco, Blink 182, Green Day and Metallica returned for another gasp. Years-in-hype releases from Radiohead, Kanye West, Solange, Frank Ocean and Drake finally came forward. Neil Young put out two albums while Iggy Pop, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen added to their mountainous discographies. Here are the year's best releases:

5. Post Pop Depression by Iggy Pop

Released: March 18

   Iggy Pop ages like the big oak tree that everyone pissed on in college. He soaks it up and moves forward. For Post Pop Depression, his seventeenth album, he teamed up with Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures), Dan Fertita (QOFSTA, The Dead Weather) and Matt Helders (The Arctic Monkeys). The collaboration makes perfect sense. Homme preserves the scuzz of Pop’s early days with the Stooges, but adds to it a tight-lipped air of cool. The guitars are thick like hamburger meat running alongside Pop’s chiseled scowl and the rhythm section provides a steady anchor.

   While listening to "Gardenia" the screws in your neck loosen. The whole song rides on a rollicking bass line that gets the body moving like an inflatable air dancer. The chorus is an act of hypnosis. “All I wanna do is tell Gardenia what to do tonight,” Pop sings in an up and down cascade with Homme’s high-pitched vocals shadowing in the background. "American Valhalla," sounds like background music from a lost episode of The Addams Family. “I shot my gun / I used my knife / This hasn’t been an easy life,” Pop sings.

   When the cavernous maw of Iggy Pop unhinges the grumble of decades past unfurls out. With every word uttered one can visualize the deep creases of his face moving in rhythm. His Adam’s apple vibrates back and forth with each syllable. "Vulture" starts with a wooden guitar lick that sounds like a throwaway demo. But, then Pop's voice drops into the song like sewer sludge and you're suddenly put on alert. “Fat black vulture white head hung low / Chewing dead meat by the side of the road / His evil breath smells just like death,” he warns dryly. Post Pop Depression ends with “Paraguay” a lacerating beat down with Pop calling bullshit on our world of constant unending information and the phonies that willingly prop it up. The snarling hero of our destructive tendencies still has enough saliva to spit back into the world.

4. Anti by Rihanna

Released: January 28

   Ri Ri, you make my heart ache. Anti was the most unhealthy addiction of the year. I got fat off of this. The downward cadence on "Needed Me" alone -- "but baby you-ou-ou-ou-ou needed me" -- makes Anti hard to put away. She gets cold with an ex-lover over a simple beat and an expanding wah-wah. When Rihanna sing, it's in a downward spiral. "Didn't they tell you that I was a savage? / fuck your white horse and your carriage." Somewhere an ex is crying in his beer in a dark bar. Every other song could've been radio signals from the ocean and this would still be on the list somewhere. BUT, add in "Work," "Consideration," "Kiss It Better," "Desperado," "Woo," "Yeah, I Said It"--come on, Lord please.

   On "Consideration," Rihanna gives the assist to SZA. Their voices move around each other in an uneven orbit. SZA bellowing beautifully bent notes; Rihanna soaring in an upward swing. The big single, "Work," though, I barely know what she's singing, gets catchier as time goes on. It's one of her best singles. She sings against a coarse electronic tremble that never lets on "Woo." Then, when you think it can't any more vicious, Rihanna screams, "I don't mean to really luh you / I don't mean to really care about you no more." Anti is a near classic from Rihanna. From song-to-song it dips and crashes through different styles, some all her own, some borrowed. Her powerful voice continues to lurk its way towards the outer extensions of R&B.

3. Gore by Deftones

Released: April 8

   Deftones continue to deliver, expanding their sound in subtle and intricate ways. They remain rooted in the punk metal headrush of their debut Adrenaline, but with each album since the sound has grown heavier and more melodic in equal parts. Gore, their eighth, furthers the formula into peak Deftones territory.

   Song structure is rarely straightforward with many little fine twists and turns. If you headbang to this without knowing the song, you’ll fast get off beat. “Prayers/Triangles,” opens the album with a slow, meandering guitar the drums break and the chorus slashes through. Throw the bottle at the wall when “Doomed User” comes on. Deftones to the core. "Geometric Headdress" erupts like a tank through a wall. Chino Moreno's scream scorches like a propane tank left to explode. Then ten seconds in it flips to an offbeat rumble with a wily guitar pushing the listener out of rhythm. Midway through "Hearts/Wires" settles over the album like the final rays of sunlight. A few simple guitar pluckings crawl over each other while Moreno sings of a memory lost. “The slit in the sky where you left / is all I see,” he aches. The slow build is hypnotizing.

   Deftones just continue to breathe new life into an old sound. Gore, the third album since Vega took over for the late Chi Ching on bass, follows Koi No Yokan and Diamond Eyes on a continuing upscale of creativity that doesn’t seem to be slipping any time soon.

2. Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Released: September 9

   You're sitting at the desk drinking vodka from a mug in an empty room. With his voice, he's calling you. With his voice, Nick Cave is calling you. “Jesus Alone” opens the sixteenth album from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds with a rhino-breathing vibration that pulsates from end to end. Skeleton Tree is a cloudy-eyed meandering through the forests of Cave’s mind. It captures him in a whirlpool of emotion as he attempts to create art in the aftermath of the tragic death of his 15-year old son, Arthur.

   In July of 2015 Arthur fell 60 feet off the Ovingdean Gap cliffs overlooking the English Channel in Brighton. Reportedly, he had taken LSD with friends and separated after experiencing a bad trip. The event is deeply imprinted in Cave’s trembling baritone, but hidden in the code of his indirect lyrics. You feel it rather than simply hearing about it. The songs move with the rhythm of the chilling wind. Sparse piano notes wash away in the reverb of dark wandering tones. It sounds like unimaginable hurt. “Rings of Saturn” reads as a powerful ode to his wife’s motherly strength in the face of family tragedy. "Anthrocene" sounds like it could be a remix from Liars or Thom Yorke.

   “I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world,” Cave sings on “Girl In Amber.” “Well, I don't think that any more the phone it rings no more.” We are particle size when seen from a distance. Insignificant, scant, a blip. We live and we die and on the world turns. Cave knows this. It’s the very principle lurking behind each lyric and on Skeleton Tree he deals with the haunt like a master poet.

1. Blackstar by David Bowie

Released: January 8

   David Bowie was in the top tier of rock and roll superstars, a god on earth, living breathing cultural history. The fact that his surprising death on January 8th surreptitiously worked as promotion for his 25th album, Blackstar, makes it all the more surreal. Was he really beamed to earth at a young age with his rocketing rise to super-stardom already planned out? The album is extravagant, ghostly, teetering on the outskirts of what is considered to be a traditional rock and roll album. It swivels and sinks into the poorly lit backroom of the musical mansion Bowie built over his fifty-plus-year-career.

   Blackstar is a seven-song voyage, a trek through the panicked headspace of someone too aware of their mortality. It shifts in moods and tempos, wandering, but never too far. The title track is a ten-minute ride alongside Bowie as he passes through the layers of Heaven. The song wears many faces, turning inside out and evolving with the minutes. Blackstar picks up with “‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore.” A heavyset drum and bass union churns through the song as it progresses into a perpetual Coleman swirl, horns gone akimbo. Bowie hits the high notes with a twisted sadness, a hidden anarchy while singing the title line. You can see his chiseled grin slowly rise with each word.

   “Lazarus” is when the listener begins to really ache. The song saunters in with a clean, melancholic guitar scale and steady drums. But, then these soft devious horns slither in slightly offbeat. When Bowie enters he sings, “Look up here / I’m in heaven,” and your heart skips a beat. In his slow drift outward he’s catching the wind currents like the bluebird without misgiving. Blackstar is a lasting statement to not only David Bowie’s artistry, but to how he lived his life through that artistry. He worked hard through the end of his days to give us a product he’d be remembered by, a final soundtrack to the epilogue of a life lived in constant creation.

Best of the Rest:

[L-R] Ape in Pink Marble by Devendra Banhart / A Seat at the Table by Solange / Sonoran Depravation by GATECREEPER / Strangers by Marissa Nadler



REVIEW: "Gore" by Deftones

Deftones Turn In New Metal

Classic With Heady Gore

   The theme of this review is consistency. For twenty years Deftones have put out consistently adept albums steeped in their own style of what could be whittled down to, in layman’s terms, as “metal.” But, it’s so much more than that. 
   Gore is the band’s eighth and was released on April 8th. The number eight, the vertical symbol of an infinite loop, is a most accurate figure to associate with this album. Deftones continue to deliver, expanding their sound in subtle and intricate ways. They remain rooted in the punk metal headrush of their debut Adrenaline, but with each album since the sound has grown heavier and more melodic in equal parts. Gore furthers the formula into peak Deftones territory. 
   Gore is undeniably a Deftones record, but there are a lot of new elements that on past albums were never fully explored: the use of feedback, Frank Delgado’s effects being the focal point during a song, elongated intros and outros and thick layering. Song structure is rarely straightforward. Each song has about five or six different parts that clamp down on each other, bleed into, collide and break through each other jerking the listener into awareness. It’ll catch you off guard. 
   There are so many little fine twists and turns at first it can be unsettling. When I first listened, it felt overloaded, like there was too much going on, like they were trying to cram too much into each song. But, that becomes the winning mark after stepping back and letting the songs soak in. Like most Deftones albums, it gets better with age. Gore may be the heaviest record to leave shadows of songs in your head afterwards. 
   Guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham and bassist Sergio Vega are stitching together some wildly inaccurate metal grooves. If you headbang to this without knowing the song, you’ll fast get off beat. They’re starting to develop their own sense of timing and it really turns things inside out. 
   The first proper single, “Prayers/Triangles,” opens the album. It is a fine representative of their sound currently. A slow, meandering guitar lulls the listener before the drums break and the chorus slashes through. Throw the bottle at the wall when “Doomed User” comes on. Deftones to the core. Carpenter plays with shades of Slayer then hits the time change with an evil guitar groan. Cunningham hits every accented cymbal with pinwheels rolling in his eye sockets. 
   “Geometric Headdress” erupts like a tank through a wall. Chino Moreno’s scream scorches like a propane tank left to explode. Then ten seconds in it flips to an offbeat rumble with a wily guitar pushing the listener out of rhythm. Midway through “Hearts/Wires” settles over the album like the final rays of sunlight. A few simple guitar pluckings crawl over each other while Moreno sings of a memory lost. “The slit in the sky where you left / is all I see,” he aches. The slow build is hypnotizing. 
   The heaviest song on the album is the title track. The pitter patter of Cunningham’s hi-hat leads into a devastating guitar butcher stab from Carpenter. Oh yeah, this one is a classic. Careful with this one here. Moreno howls likes he’s burning alive. The pit will blow like a hazardous chemical reaction whenever they play it live. Get the gore on the final minute. Thunderous feedback beating your head in. 
   “Phantom Bride” enlists the help of Jerry Cantrell, from Alice In Chains, on guitar. Midway through Cantrell releases a reflective guitar solo that weaves into the song. Jerry wails. Lord, Jerry wails. The guitars spill out reminding me of mid-90s Smashing Pumpkins before getting obliterated by Carpenter’s heavy strings. Beautiful. Sets the heart racing. It’s a new turn and it works. 
   Deftones just continue to breathe new life into an old sound. They keep the rigid metalhead fans happy, but still find room to expand sonically, creating new categories of genre. Gore, the third album since Vega took over for the late Chi Ching on bass, follows Koi No Yokan and Diamond Eyes on a continuing upscale of creativity that doesn’t seem to be slipping any time soon.

Key Tracks: "Doomed User," "Geometric Headdress," "Gore," "Hearts/Wires," "Phantom Bride"

source: http://imp

LOOKBACK: "Diamond Eyes" by Deftones

On this Date Five Years Ago Deftones

Re-emerged with Diamond Eyes

   Five years ago today Deftones hurled back with their sixth album, Diamond Eyes. “Let’s drink with our weapons in our hands,” frontman Chino Moreno suggests on “Rocket Skates,” the first single. “Let’s sleep in this trance.” Then, with the scream where you can actually hear the throat tear, “Guns, razors, knives!” With that Deftones announced a return to form in the wake of tragedy. 

   In the years leading up to Diamond Eyes, the structure of the group had nearly come undone. Their previous album, Saturday Night Wrist, came four year earlier in 2006 during a somewhat creatively stagnant time for the band. The album still had some great songs (“Rapture,” “Beware,” “Rats! Rats! Rats!”), but something about it felt over-labored and ultimately garnered little enthusiasm from critics or fans. It easily cemented its place as the lesser of all Deftones’ near-perfect albums.
   The abyss that followed left the group looking like they may go the way of their pre-9/11 metalhead brethren: a scorching burn with a quicker fade to mediocrity. (See: Korn, Staind, Godsmack) Then, the fall of 2008 brought the devastating news that founding bassist Chi Cheng had been the passenger in a car wreck and was put up in the hospital, deep in an uncommunicative comma.
   Eros, it was learned, was the name of the album they were working on at the time of the accident. It would be shelved as the group sought to find perspective of their misfortune. When it became clear Cheng wouldn’t wake up with any sort of ease, the band decided to soldier on without their brother in song.
   Sergio Vega, who previously played in Quicksand, was a longtime friend of the band and would fill in for their live shows. Eventually he would add his flex to the muscle of Stephen Carpenter’s riffs and Abe Cunningham’s scatter-shot drum blasts in the studio. The band rediscovered themselves amidst the darkest chapter of their creative lives. With Cheng heavy in their hearts they began to record new music.
   On Diamond Eyes, the songs got leaner, louder and tighter. Cunningham ascends into another level of drum genius, matching the subtle twists in Carpenter’s meaty riffs. Just try to air drum to “Diamond Eyes,” “CMND/CNTRL” or “Rocket Skates” and not look like a fool.
   “You’ve Seen The Butcher” turns a clunky guitar burble into a slithering sexual come-on. Moreno weaves between the riff. “You slowly enter ‘cause you know my room,” he sings. “And then you crawl your knees off / before you shake my tomb.” After lyrically phoning in it on the last album, Moreno gets back to cunning ambiguity, painting lines that point in different directions.
   Vega brings a new lockstep groove that immediately qualifies him to fill the legacy of Cheng. Hear him creep around the crunch and scream of Carpenter and Moreno on “Prince” and “Royal.” Gone are the empty atmospherics that started to pervade the previous album. Frank Delgado adds touches of keyboards to wrap it all in a wave of dark radiation.
   Sometimes a tragic moment can lead to unearthed expression. For the band and their fans the loss of Cheng will never be forgotten, but for those same people the music had to continue. Diamond Eyes is a testament to the group’s longevity and maturity. Their follow-up two years later, Koi No Yokan, would be even better.
   Cheng would never wake up. He remained in quiet unknowing solitude until his death in 2013. On “Risk” Moreno sings out to his brother. “I’m right here just / Come outside and see it / But pack your heart, you might need it.”

source: http://imp

REVIEW: "†††" by †††

Chino Moreno puts the haze in the chamber on ††† debut

     The ghosts of Chino Moreno’s new-wave past have floated into the present for his newest project dubbed, ††† (“crosses”). The Deftones frontman linked up with old friend Shaun Lopez, from Far, and Chuck Doom for their self-titled debut album--a collection of songs both hazy and guttural. 

     Each track is kicked along by crisp, pricking hip-hop beats, but every noise around it is from the gallows. The opening track, "†his is a †rick," strikes the speakers with an incessant trap beat while Moreno sings tenderly against loops of feedback growl. The groove of premonition on "†elepathy" is darkly funky and so good it hurts. Lyrically, Moreno is prowling with his usual obscurity, dealing with shape-shifters, witchery, ghosts and demons like it’s just another walk through the graveyard on a foggy evening. 

     The Deftones relation is never lost. The songs exhibit the same groove and crescendo of Moreno’s prime-time act, but without the thrash-metal and punk bursts. Instead, the release is consumed by a thick layer of electronic atmosphere and distorted vibrations, something always leaking in the cracks of Deftones’ music, especially on songs like “Cherry Waves,” “Digital Bath,” and “Lucky You.” Here, though, it’s the focal point, not merely an embellishment. 

     ††† first started constructing songs in 2011. They released EP †, in 2011, and EP ††, in 2012, each consisting of five songs and each one appearing on the 15-track debut. The previous songs are subtly remastered with some added sonic flourishes, but they’re basically the same. Unfortunately, the anticipation was dimmed somewhat to learn only five songs were actually new. 

     The big surprise--and mild disappointment--here, is the real lack of experimentation. Given that this is Moreno’s third project outside Deftones, there was an anticipation of something beyond the folds of his previous work. It’s sharper and more focused than his first non-Deftones outing, Team Sleep, and less expansive than Palms, his project with members of Isis, but, in the end, it’s not a huge departure. 

     Many songs are centered on choruses chock-full of rock-and-roll grandiosity, not too dissimilar from the single “Minerva,” off Deftones' self-titled album. The big pummeling drums on "†hholyghs†" rise like oncoming waves before dissipating into haunted house sound effects. 

     "Nine†een Eigh†y Seven," "Prurien†" and “†rophy” move like a snow drift on a slow-wafting breeze. The album finishes in hushes with "Dea†h Bell." Moreno’s voice sails from the next room over, while a meek piano plays against a gear-cranking drum pattern. 

     The best song, “Bi†ches Brew,” was released with a video late last year. The pulse of a wavering bass moves with a lock-step drum groove through the shadows against the moonlight. It’s one of Moreno’s most haunting melodies with whispers looming from the corners. For pure metalheads, not exactly keen on the lightness of movement, there’s a quick dash of Deftones unrelenting at the end. 

     Moreno may be one of the fiercest screamers in all of metal, but Deftones have always been more than a metal band, fusing melody and atmosphere with crushing riffs. It’s a formula that has kept them ahead of their grouchy, nu-metal counterparts and that lies squarely on Moreno’s early inspirations and his persistence in staying out of the mold.

     He’s made no secret about his admiration for the emotion behind early Eighties new-wave and groups like Depeche Mode and The Cure. This new project takes those first musical awakenings and blends them with the modern day equivalent of moody, down-tempo acts like Burial, the xx, Zomby, even Massive Attack. †††, then, is a worthy extension of Chino Moreno’s musical mind. 

Key Tracks: “Bi†ches Brew,” “†his is a †rick," "†elepathy," “†he Epilogue”

from: IMP

READ ALSO: ††† / Color Film at Santos Party House, 2/12/14

††† / Color Film at Santos Party House, 2/12/14

Three crosses for ††† at Santos Party House, Feb. 12, 2014.

If, in the late 90's and early 2000's, you dipped your music tastes somewhere in the dip of where punk and metal met, last Wednesday night may have seemed a bit strange. Two side-projects of veteran frontmen of the stage played a packed Santos Party House: Chino Moreno, of Deftones, played with his new group, ††† and opening was Color Film, fronted by Daryl Palumbo, Glassjaw's nutcase vocalist. Each act an extension of their primary group, but each standing strenuously on its own.

Color Film, Palumbo's second side-project since Head Automatica, shambled onto the stage. Their songs were quick, tight driving post-punk. Richard Penzone, previous collaborator with Palumbo, shredded his guitar. Palumbo scratched and clawed his way through the set just as he's always done. The hand not holding a microphone almost constantly pumped the air with a fist. He's a Grade A maniac on the stage, staring outlandishly, cartoonishly at the crowd, in a state of childlike awe. 

Palumbo and Color Film drummer during set.

The band was loose, clearly still kneading the songs into shape, but what they left behind was promising. Last year they released Until You Turn Blue EP, but the songs in their set, "52 Minds," "Bad Saint" and "Small Town" might turn up on their upcoming full-length debut, Living Arrangements. 

Three lighted crosses at the back of the stage were bathed in color as the full five-piece live version of ††† hit the stage. Moreno, as usual, lastly emerged from the dark to rapturous applause. The crowd always swoons for the guy in whatever form he's appearing in and it was no secret he was the guy everyone came to see. 

The group's debut self-titled album was released the night before, but already, every word Moreno sang had an added echo from the crowd. Clearly, he was overjoyed to see the big turn out. On stage everyone was in sync, often breaking into big grins. Moreno was flanked on either side by his co-conspirators on the album, Shaun Lopez, from Far, and Chuck Doom. 

Their foreboding grooves translated perfectly into the live room. The atmosphere was amped. The entrapment of "†elepa†hy" turned the place into a Gothic dance-hall. "Bi†ches Brew" was a hallowing out of the brain with swervy bass poking the frontal lobe, turning clockwise. The cool trip-hop of "Blk S†allion" made it to the live stage for the first time and the stutter bass stabs of "†his Is A †rick" slapped up against the wall.

Lopez stood to the side, jet-black hair combed over, fiddling between a keyboard set-up and playing chiseled psych guitar licks. Doom, who Moreno called Dr. Doom when an audience member asked who he was, played the bass like a wet dolphin, always dipping forward, looking like souped up King Of The Hill character.
††† abandoned the stage briefly, returning for a moody rendition of "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus and finishing with "†he Years." As they dispersed for the final time the glowing crosses left the audience mired in a trance.

Chino Moreno (center) performs with ††† last Wednesday at Santos Party House.

READ ALSO: Chino Moreno puts the haze in the chamber on ††† debut

Chi Cheng Floats Freely (1970-2013)

Cheng, up in the air. Photo from blowthescene.com

    One of the details I most remember from my first Deftones concert was that cut-up, rugged, barking holler bassist Chi Cheng threw in behind Chino Moreno's wails. It sounded so deranged and at first it wasn't clear where it was coming from. I can remember coming up from the mushed pit of people for air and spotting the long, dirty dreadlocks of Cheng as they whipped and whirled in the blue and purple lights. That was 2001 and the band were touring their masterpiece, White Pony, and from that moment forward I was a lifelong fan.

     Cheng was such a force on that stage, slightly crouched in stance, head flipping up and down, his expression hidden by that cage of hair. His bass could beef up the thrashing of Stephen Carpenter's guitar or swirl in ghostly constancy when the beat dropped out. Beyond the abrasiveness of their music, there was something alleviating about seeing Deftones live. There was a real sense of camaraderie on the stage. Moreno and Cheng would often banter back and forth with each other between songs and the audience always felt in on the joke. We all laughed, even if we never clearly heard what they were saying. Those moments will bring a crowd closer to its band and eliminate the physical and mental barriers. With music we're all in this swarm together. 

     In the early morning of Sunday, April 14, Cheng succumbed to the coma that had kept him down since being flung from the passenger seat of a car in 2008. Over these last few years Cheng showed limited progress and with unfortunate circumstances like this it is difficult to see his passing as a loss or a blessing. Either way, he has left his body behind and now floats freely.

     The foundation he started with Deftones in 1988 will always be relevant to a growing cluster of rock and roll fans. As each new admirer reaches back into their discography it'll be his territorial barking heard on the first five albums and his bass will be the last moment of calm before all hell breaks loose. As Deftones continue to make exciting records and tour the world, Cheng's presence will always be felt, in the crowd, on the stage, and in the music forever. 

Deftones' Road Revival

Nothing Else, but to Throw Your Body at the Cement

I. September 21, 2010 – Northern Lights – Clifton Park, New York

______Never did I think I’d get a chance to see Deftones in a tiny bar, between a church and a Dollar General, in a blown out strip mall twenty minutes north of Albany, New York. The band, from Sacramento, California have made a valiant return to music after a devestating car crash has kept bassist Chi Cheng immovable in a coma. They regrouped with friend Serge Vega filling in for Cheng and recorded their sixth album, Diamond Eyes. After selling more copies than expected (62,000+) and hitting number 6 on the Billboard 200, according to Wikipedia, the album looks to restore the success of their ten-year-old classic, White Pony.
______The band successfully survived the late 90s “nu-metal” blizzard more gracefully than any other act from the era. Limp Bizkit returned, unable to fill seats; System of a Down went on a hiatus to fulfill crummy side projects; Korn just garbles out another record whenever someone leaves the band, and Orgy? Static-X? Godsmack? Deftones have moved beyond all that noise to establish themselves as a long standing rock band, unafraid to break the unforgiving boundaries set in metal music. They’ve thrown melody, synthesizer and drum machines into their own mix of thrashing punk and chunky guitar drone in ways other bands would fail miserably at. They do not give up and their fan base forever loves them for it. Since the release of Diamond Eyes last May, the Deftones, as they’re known to do, have been touring incessantly.
______The show, in the town of Clifton Park, was a one-off from their current national tour with Alice in Chains and Mastodon. I was shocked to pull up to, what looked like, an abandoned shopping center. Nothing else was around except a place called Hair Zen and a Stewart’s convenience store, where I slammed a Red Bull and watched evil black airplanes make their descend.
______Behind the bushes of a Kingercare I smoked a joint that burned straight down the middle, brushed the dust off my pants and got in line. An anxious fan behind me said to his girlfriend, “I want to get so close; so close I can feel it in my heart.” When I turned around a big grin was forming on his face and my mouth formed the same.
______Northern Lights has two bars. One giant square bar in the middle was a barrier for out-of-control mosh-pits. Another, to the side, catered to a set of tables underneath a giant screen flashing the night’s performance. I moved in through the smoke to the front, two people back from the railing. The excitement seeped while the minutes passed.
______The opener was New York’s own Selfish Needy Creatures. The whole time they played I only tried to get a glimpse of what appeared to be a tattoo of the World Trade Towers on the singer’s left shoulder. After a near twenty-five minute set they walked off to mild applause. A flash of stringman Stephen Carpenter, moving from truck to truck, through glass doors, pounded me with anxiety. Someone came from the back placing the microphone on a neatly-folded white towel. After some Snoop Dogg song ended, the lights dropped and cheers rose from the billowing crowd. Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham and DJ Frank Delgado filled up the dark background and Vega, with Chino Moreno, calmly filled up the foreground. Their silhouettes were fragmented by purple lights shooting out. The time had finally arrived. The energy was ready to glide.
______Skipping introductions, they launched into “Headup.” Naturally everyone surged forward like a pack of hungry tigers after a bloody red steak. I was only a few feet from Moreno shooting my arms up and out. The second song, “Engine No. 9,” fed right into the quick bass-snare pop of, “My Own Summer (Shove It).” The blistering trio of staple songs made it feel like they’d been at it for an hour.
______After the quick lift-off Moreno needed a breath. His long-sleeved plaid shirt was drenched. He claimed someone put cocaine on his microphone, sniffing and brushing his nose off, between huffs and puffs. The rest of the band just smiled. Of course we all wanted some and just laughed at the joke as they conveniently shot into “Nosebleed.”
______Moreno fastened his feet to the railing for one of the cooler things I’ve witnessed in live music. Lifted up by arms, he hung right above the crowd looking out with a boyish gleam of total destruction. A slight smile in the silence before the spastic thrash of “Elite.” Clutching the microphone tightly, he curled in, jack-knifing head first into the mob at the first scream, “When you’re ripe!” Heads blasting together. “You’ll bleed outta control!” He was in full form, hanging from the monitors and throwing himself into the music. The band was dead on with every note and successfully revived their energy after what has been a tumultuous couple of years. Something from every album was played, including the often forgotten “Hole in the Earth,” from Saturday Night Wrist. Surprisingly, they didn't touch the new songs until the last third of the set.
______Their first stab at the new record was the mellow drop-off of “Sextape.” The hushed song gave the band and the crowd some breathing room, but not much because it came sandwiched between two burning cuts off Adrenaline, “Birthmark” and “Root.” Then four new songs, “Royal,” “You’ve Seen the Butcher,” “Prince,” and the hammering, “Diamond Eyes,” rumbled through. When they left the stage all you could hear was the panting crowd. If you keep listening you can hear it for miles.
______The encore was a nice taste, a quick retrospective of Deftones’ catalogue thus far. “Rocket Skates” bleated up against the walls and transitioned beautifully into “Around the Fur.” They finished with their biggest single, “Change (In the House of Flies).” As Cunningham rolled and splashed through the ending, Delgado slammed his laptop shut and turned into the dark.
______They left quickly returning for one last gunshot to the face with classic closer, “7 Words.” By the end my white button-down shirt was transparent with sweat as I plunged through the meat-grinder home.

II. September 22, 2010 -- Agganis Arena -- Boston, Massachusetts

______The following night the band crossed state lines to join Alice in Chains and Mastodon for the Black Diamond Skye tour stop at Boston University’s Agganis Arena. The morning before the band canceled an in-store signing at the city’s Newbury Comics “due to sickness.” Whatever that sickness was, it was not noticeable come nightfall.
______They startled the audience settling in with six dollar beers erupting into the punishing “Diamond Eyes.” Moreno reached toward the sky with each bomb dropped by Carpenter. The set relied heavily on new material and old classics. Their electric blue and fiery orange light polished the audience. A disco ball dropped for “Sextape,” shooting beams of purple light to the top seats. Moreno bounced all over the place, knees up, running in circles like a demon child. Deftones enjoyed their time on the stage.
______The only difference from the show at Northern Lights was the new song, “Risk,” which Moreno dedicated to Cheng. The song held onto a new gloomy meaning with Moreno promising, “I will save your life. I will find away,” from the monitors. Unfortunately, a giant moat of security personnel between him and the audience, sopped up any possible interaction. It was satisfying to see them on the big stage, but I yearned to be up front, close and personal. It’s difficult to get into any performance, much less a metal performance, while sitting in cushioned seats. This, however, is the beauty of Deftones. No matter where you’re at; whether it’s drowning in the mosh pit; smoking joints in the lawn, or holed up on the balcony; the music still pumps into your blood. The energy is always there. You can still feel it in your heart.