Saturday Night Wrist - The Deftones

Saturday Night Wrist

Deftones
Maverick Records.


SCQ Rating: 74%

Until record stores opened on Halloween 2006, few Deftones fans were certain they’d be able to hold Saturday Night Wrist. Turmoil surrounded Chino and the boys as they set out to record the follow-up to Deftones (2003), which saw the band try to appease faithful fans who adored the head-bang violence of Adrenaline but scolded the band for branching out on subsequent releases (including 2000’s spectacular White Pony). The self-titled record showed the Deftones at an impasse; caught between fans who championed them pioneers of rap-metal and newer devotees who encouraged their growing need to experiment. The band had their work cut out for them and the difficult trials of creating Saturday Night Wrist were so well-documented (inner-band fighting, firing of producers), many thought any finished record would undoubtedly be a posthumous release.

First off, those fickle fans are right: the Deftones did play a significant role in bringing rap-metal to mainstream rock, years before Korn or Limp Bizkit. What most of those fans try to ignore, however, is that the Deftones abandoned it shortly thereafter, flexing their songwriting and opting for less trendy pastures. Secondly, much of the band’s rap-metal association has been maintained by music-press who judged the Deftones set-up: namely, a vocalist whose screams bordered on metal, and the presence of a turntablist/DJ. Since the late 90s, lead singer Chino Moreno has kept his screams in tune, offered no rapping, and frankly, owns one of the most powerfully versatile voices in alternative rock. Frank Delgado is especially misunderstood, as his turntable skills were never used to scratch or punctuate the guitar riffs (like aforementioned colleagues did), but to craft mood through sound-scapes and samples.

Saturday Night Wrist is the result of this identity crisis, and benefits from both their angst and self-assurance. A proper continuation of White Pony, the Deftones’ latest has delved deeper into the murky beauty of sadness, mixing their hard-rock roots with bittersweet balladry and sonic splendor. Their choice of blazing new trails instead of back-peddling has found the band staking claim to a sound that is utterly their own; imagine the intensity of White Pony drowning in The Cure’s Disintegration. Moreno’s vocals are at their finest (proving his executive decision to hire a new producer to record his singing was the right decision), from the explosive bipolarity of screaming/swooning on ‘Rapture’ to the angst-ridden emotion in ‘Xerces’. Although much of this record could easily be filed under hard-rock, Saturday Night Wrist makes a bold statement to be grouped with the best that rock has to offer. ‘Hole in the Earth’ is an excellent choice for lead single, while ‘Cherry Waves’ follows in the same slow-burning fashion that made ‘Change (in the House of Flies)’ so breath-taking.

This newfound confidence doesn’t come without a misstep, and annoyingly, it’s a large one. ‘Pink Cellphone’ is the kind of track I would usually tip my hat to, as it’s experimental beyond anything else here, and more electronic than rock. Needless to say, this song is a sore thumb in an otherwise fluid sequencing but most damaging is the derogatory, inane words (spoken and laughed through by Annie Hardy), which exclusively hurts the album’s graceful temperament.

Despite the critical response to Deftones’ branch-out material, concerts still find the band getting merely polite applause during songs performed from such albums. It’s a shame that such a talented band are stuck with ardent fans who are living in the past when their future is so much more interesting.