Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Deftones
Saturday Night Wrist ****
Maverick

Bands at a crossroads can make several decisions that usually bare horrible results. Johnny Marr quit The Smiths thus ending their remarkable run, R.E.M. went against their better judgment and promised to disband if one should leave and continue to make disappointing albums without Bill Berry's services and Metallica hired a 40,000 a month therapist who sucked whatever life they had left and released Some Kind of Monster. Deftones found themselves in a similar place, once again, but instead of packing it in or hiring a shrink they seemingly put those sessions to music and have created another very good if not great record to add to their discography. The album was a long time coming, while derailed by side projects, splintered marriages and a massive breakdown in communication nothing will solidify a band like one at war with an outside force. Especially one hired as an ally that proves themselves an enemy. So if nothing else Bob Ezrin (producer) can be appreciated for that, however his scope of influence on the finished product will be up for debate for a long time. Truth of the matter is no matter how much of a band Deftones are their success largely falls on Chino and without escaping to friend Shaun Lopez's studio this album would still be on a shelf somewhere. Deftones, like Metallica and to an extent Queensryche, have always been seen as the thinking person's Metal band and here they prove it on every track. Save "Pink Cellphone" which isn't even good enough to be classified a throwaway. While the band is credited with the songwriting the fact is that Abe and Chi complete a rhythm section that can play anything the songs dictate, the true balance is found where Chino and Stephen's worlds collide. Sometimes their songs will be overridden by one personality or the other whether it's the unbridled angst of "Nosebleed" or the overly trippy "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event". When composing the music equally the results are majestic like on their massive breakthrough White Pony. Since then they have struggled to reach that particular bar, but the attempts are no less fascinating. While Deftones was angrier on the surface there were plenty of moments that recalled White Pony, and on the majority of Saturday Night Wrist it feels like the bonus tracks from their White Pony-era but this is no regression. The fact is with Chino and Steph on the same page the band is all but unstoppable. The albums starts off with the first single "Hole in the Earth" finding Chino at his finest croon, jabbing the guitar stabs and punctuating the trying years with the refrain "I hate all of my friends". Water imagery and details of a universe crumbling fill the album and Chino seems to use the tracks to lose himself, to call for help, attempt to escape and eventually be rescued as well as be the rescuer. "Beware the Water" warns "that this could end" against a fuzzing swell, while "Cherry Waves" offers hope "we hug the same plank" as drums thrash the boney ports of the clinging survivors. "Rats" has the scurvy soundscape begging the question "You wanted it, was it like you dreamed? You got it and was it like it seemed?" They once again have fused the best of their influences to make another unique statement in a genre so ripe with rip offs, bands so inept they even have to steal from themselves to complete a full album. Deftly moving and intermixing copious shoegazed and strangling guitars, apocalyptic and languid beats and Chino's ever improving voice the group should be a force in whatever genre they are labeled next. Any band that can survive the "Nu-Metal" tag has an unlimited up side. Success can be a bitch or so I've heard. And hearing another one of Deftones' triumphs was well worth the wait.

by Josh R. Perry

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