People tend to associate metal with anger. I suppose this might be an accurate impression; who hasn\u2019t driven around at night blaring some Slayer when they\u2019re pissed off? Some wailing guitars and guttural screaming can do wonders for the soul.<\/p>\n
But what about metal that\u2019s not really angry? Deftones\u2019 newest album, Diamond Eyes<\/i>, came about after bassist Chi Cheng was injured in automobile accident and sent into a coma. The band was originally going to produce an angry, dark album called Eros<\/i>. After Cheng\u2019s accident, though, the band worked with Sergio Vega to create Diamond Eyes<\/i>, an album that combines mellow and intense sound into a cohesive whole. Like many of the band\u2019s\u2019 albums, post-production is kept to a minimum here, giving it a more realistic, grounded sound than what you might expect from a metal album.<\/p>\n
The highlight of this disc, by far, is the more mellow tracks like \u201cSextape.\u201d The technical skill on display in these tracks is impressive\u2014rather than taking center stage, the intense bass that serves as Deftones\u2019 signature highlights frontman Chino Moreno\u2019s crooning. It\u2019s music that\u2019s powerful without forcing itself on the listener.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say that the album won\u2019t melt anyone\u2019s face. The title track, for instance, slams its point home right from the start. Moreno wails, the bass hammers at the eardrums, it\u2019s classic Deftones all the way. Likewise, songs like \u201cRoyal\u201d would be at home on any of Deftones\u2019 earlier albums. Fans that have been with the band from the start won\u2019t be disappointed here.<\/p>\n
My pick for the top track of the album is \u201cBeauty School.\u201d It represents the ideal fusion of the mellow and intense sides of Diamond Eyes<\/i>, in turn showcasing the band\u2019s growth. This is a love song given the Deftones touch, honed just sharp enough to cut the listener while remaining inviting. The lyrics are haunting, the main riff is pounding, and all in all, the song straddles a line that few others can.<\/p>\n
One of the key points of this album that sets it apart from the rest is that there are no songs about how hard life is. Nobody sings about how much they hurt, nobody complains. According to Moreno, this was intentional as a shift from the typical dark album to something more positive. In other words, this isn\u2019t just a tribute album for Chi Cheng. It\u2019s Deftones at its finest, and in the end that feels like it\u2019s all the tribute Cheng needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":30503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7280],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-42167","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-deftones","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42167"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}