woohoo! after an incredibly extended break from reviewing albums, i'm back, baby! and do i have a surprise for all of you!
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist (10/31/06):
1) Hole in the Earth
2) Rapture
3) Beware
4) Cherry Waves
5) Mein (feat. Serj Tankian of System of A Down)
6) U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Selct, Start
7) Xerces
8) Rats! Rats! Rats!
9) Pink Cellphone (feat. Annie Hardy of Giant Drag)
10) Combat
11) Kimdracula
12) Riviere
okay...so friday the 13th is officially a lucky day this year! one of my connections in radio was able to hook me up with a promo copy of the deftones new album today, so i thought i would promptly begin working on a review for the album, since it is the most anticipated album for sacramento area music this year, and the most anticipated for myself, in general. i'm listening to it for the third time in a row now, and here are my first impressions, in typical review format...
ten seconds is all it takes. by then, 'saturday night wrist' has sucked you in, tumbling you around with huge drumkicks and grinding guitar riffs...leaving you immediately dizzied...and what follows is pleasure and pain pricking at your senses, delightful, heavy, and deeply gratifying. 'hole in the earth,' the album's lead-off song and first single, marks the deftones return in the best way possible: it's immediately recognizable as being the work of its makers. there are certain trademarks, developed over a more-than-decade-long career, that instantaneously make an impression...and yet 'saturday night wrist' as a whole seems even more expansive and exploratory than any of the band's work since their creative peak, 2000's 'white pony.'
in regards to the album's first track, 'hole in the earth is a perfect representation of where the band is presently. it captures in four minutes so many of the multitude of facets that wonderfully pepper 'saturday night wrist.' riffs are absolutely on the heavy side, the drumming is crisp and unrelenting in its guidance of the album's direction (which twists and turns throughout), and chino moreno's vocal performances are faultless. from the ethereal beauty of tracks like 'beware' and 'cherry waves,' to the brutality of 'rapture' and 'combat,' this album dips and soars with a grace rarely achieved by bands belonging to the harder rock persuasions. 'saturday night wrist' means as much to modern rock & roll as any album made with the intent to push the boundaries of the musical period in which they were crafted. its deceptively tuneful, see-sawing between melancholic reflection and jaw-clenching frustration. here's the best allegory i can come up with: this album is like a manic depressive refusing to accept his medication. it incorporates disparate elements of heavy metal, punk, alternative rock, classic rock, and electronica rock within its tumultuous grooves, and there's also enough cohesion between the mortar blasts to keep the music tight and unified.
yes, 'saturday night wrist' is incredibly experimental and innovative, but it also overflows with undeniable hooks, which serve as reminders that first and foremost, deftones will always be about strong, emotionally resonant songs. today's deftones have emerged stronger, smarter and more excited as a result of their experiences. as one of the few acts lumped into the nu-metal scene in the 90's who have maintained musical credibility throughout their career, deftones have again showed that their creative fires burn much brighter than all of their pigeonholed peers. whether they were ever truly a nu-metal outfit is something that only the individual can determine. what is a complete certainty, though, is that regardless of sub-genre classification, deftones are a fantastic friggin' rock band. that much is smack-yourself-silly obvious after listening to the track-by-track cohesiveness of 'saturday night wrist'. count along with me, why don’t you?
...just be sure you're nowhere near anything easily breakable during the moment when those truly massive drums kick in.
~Padrino
