Deftones
Diamond Eyes
(Warner)
There comes a point when listening to Diamond Eyes, the sixth album from Deftones, where the songs seem to evaporate. I listened and I listened, trying to discern the quality of this, the noteworthy in that, trying to organize, sort and describe. But eventually these eleven songs became one long, gushing sound and I’m surprised at just how comforting a sound it is.
Recorded in the wake of tragedy (on November 4, 2008, bassist Chi Cheng was seriously injured in a car accident in California, and has remained in a minimally conscious state since that time).- but not in the shadow of it - Diamond Eyes finds the Sacramento, CA band at their best. Almost as highly wound and concise as their former selves circa 2000’s White Pony but also as thunderous as their later work, here they quite studiously play to their strengths and all in pursuit of something quite unexpected: beauty.
On record this translates into riffs complex and melodic, panoramic choruses, pads of synths and a kick drum warm as a blanket. Over which, vocalist Chino Moreno obtusely sings and screams (such a serrated, frustrated scream) about death angels and mystery and altered states, and everything is described as wet or wave-like or exploding or gleaming – all easily enough decoded with a passing knowledge of dream analysis, semiotics or a dirty mind.
And in this delivery, Deftones are unique. The fucking in their metal (there is always fucking in metal, fucking and death) is always tempered by the sensual; their world is one of desire and sheen, surface gloss designed not to build a harder, more extreme metal but a more spectacular, more attractive one. When it works, they dive straight into the imagined fantasies of the modern metal head, something this genre was once so good at documenting but now somehow ignores. For all their innovation and refinement, Deftones are simply doing their job. They’re one of the last glamorous metal bands working completely untethered from the concrete world. As they report back with Diamond Eyes - from their magical kingdom to my city commute - I smile in spite of myself. Long may they luxuriate and reign out there in the ether.
Ian Rogers