Herald Rating: ***
(Maverick)
Review: Russell Baillie
Whoever the first band was to add "tone" to their name, they sure started something. It's still an adaptable rock suffix, as this week's column does its desperate best to prove.
The Deftones are onetime, standard-issue Californian rap metallers who, on their third album, are showing signs of the Big Breakthrough. Maybe as this album shows, that's because they have a patch to call their own among the genre we've started calling nu-metal. A sensitive, more thoughtful, tuneful and adventurously musical approach, which at times sounds like a splicing of Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins and, when singer-guitarist Chine Moreno feels like going for the high notes, U2.
There's quite a few of the sweeping latter to early tracks Feiticeira and Digital Bath, before the darkness descends on the raspy jagged down-tuned guitar surge of Elite. The Faith No More-ish RX Queen, Change (In the House of Flies) and Knife Pary show an appealing blend of gothic dramatics and sweeping choruses. Elsewhere, the mix of sinewy energy and a feeling that there's something smart going on behind all that aggro - as on Street Carp - can also remind of that up-and-coming local band Shihad.
If it suddenly sounds late in the piece as if the Deftones have turned into a certain other Californian art-metal outfit, it means you've reached the bellicose duet with Tool singer Maynard James Keenan on Passenger. But not to worry. That guest spot is just one overwrought touch on an album that fair revels in them. They may not be God's gift to nu-metal but you get the feeling that the Deftones just may be the right band at the right time.
<i>The Deftones:</i> White Pony
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.