Considering how many different projects he's been juggling in the past year alone, it's pretty remarkable that Chino Moreno and the other Deftones have had such a relatively quick (for them, at least) turnaround with the proper follow-up to 2010's Diamond Eyes. Their seventh studio album is slated for an October release, and Moreno tells Billboard and others to expect more of the Sacramento art-metal troupe's trademark sound: devastatingly heavy, relentlessly brutal post-hardcore metal wrapped around flourishes of lyrical beauty, gothic sonic nuance and, of course, Chino's alternately raw and endearing vocals.
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"It's not a super fast or slow record. It's very dynamic," said Moreno. "Some of my favorite things about Deftones are the dynamics. Yes, we're a heavy band, but we're not just in-your-face aggro the whole time, punching you in the face. There's a lot of aggression in some of the music, but there's also this very soothing element where there's a lot of soundscapes rather than attack, attack, attack the whole time. I understand that's a big part of our sound, but I really feel like we reached a peak on our dynamics on this record with those two qualities -- the beauty of something and just straight, ruthless aggression."
Chino also hints that the new album—helmed once again by Diamond Eyes producer Nick Raskulinecz—features more active contributions from new bassist Sergio Vega (filling in for post-comatose bassist Chi Cheng, still recovering from a debilitating 2008 car accident) and, like their last album, was recorded at a relatively breezy pace. "We have a well-documented history of taking forever to make records," admitted Moreno. "But with our last record Diamond Eyes we did it in a really short, good amount of time, probably four or five months from the time we started writing until we finished it. For us, that was record time, so this time the idea was, 'Let's go in and start a record on this date and let's try to be finished by summertime and keep this work ethic we kind of stumbled upon on the last one,' and we did."
For us long-time fans, "dynamic" is a great word to hear thrown around. When they're at their best (White Pony, Deftones, etc.), the band manage to create unbelievably stark (but still cohesive) contrasts between "peel the paint off the wall" metal and arrestingly gorgeous moments of unadulterated beauty. Would love to hear another Deftones album with the almost baffling back-and-forth aesthetic sway of their fiercely underrated self-titled album… but let's be honest, if it's got the Deftones name on it, it's guaranteed to be ten types of amazing.
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[Billboard.com]
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