Album Review: Deftones - Gore

In the year 2016, quickly careening toward the age 33, I may not be in the right demographic to listen to a new album by the Deftones, but here I am, listening to the new album by the Deftones, aptly titled Gore.

Let’s back up a little bit here.

I think I was 15 the first time I heard the Deftones—the double shot of “My Own Summer” and “Be Quiet and Drive” were a shock to my teenage system, and I quickly latched onto a copy of Around The Fur. And while listening to Gore, I tried to ask myself this question—how would I feel about Around The Fur if I were hearing it for the first time as a grown ass man and not an angsty teenager? Would I be bored by the constant barrage of stale, “metal” guitar chugging? Or would I still be enthralled by it?

It’s a question of nostalgia, of guilty pleasures, of things we only partially grow out of, and of how dearly we hold things from our formative years—and it’s a question I can’t honestly answer.

I’m confident that the Deftones peaked artistically in 2000, with their magnum opus White Pony—an album that successfully and nearly flawlessly balanced what they haven’t been able to successfully balance since then: the juxtaposition of dreamy, woozy, near-shoegaze atmospherics with intense, pummeling, larynx shredding hard rock. 

With each subsequent Deftones record since White Pony there have been attempts at recapturing that feeling—usually limited to one or two songs per record—like the torrential “Minerva” or the experimental “Anniversary of An Uninteresting Event,” both from the 2003 self-titled release, or the melodic, soaring, yet heavy balance achieved on “Sextape” from 2010’s Diamond Eyes.

I had high hopes for Gore going into it based on the lead single and the album’s opening track, the, again, melodic and soaring yet heavy “Prayers/Triangles” which straddled that delicate balance the band all too often falls onto either side of—and throughout the album, the balance is trick they are only capable of truly pulling off one other time, with the similar sounding (and similarly titled) “Hearts/Wires,” and to some extent on the less exciting “(L)mirl.”

Despite my high hopes upon hearing the first single, I was exponentially less impressed with the follow up single: the generic and shouty “Doomed User.” Luckily, the band’s penchant for mindless metal riffing backing vocalist Chino Moreno’s blood curdling screaming are kept at a minimum—only appearing again on the title track and partially on “Geometric Headdress.”

The rest of the album is made up of songs that, at their core, really lack the depth and heart that are required to make a Deftones song really listenable or enjoyable for me in the year 2016. There are moments where the song tries to soar on the powerful, distended “metal” guitar chords and Moreno’s vocal theatrics, which he can still pull off effortlessly after 20+ years—like on “Xenon” and “Phantom Bride.” They aren’t bad songs, but they also aren’t the kind that will stick with you for very long after listening to Gore.

I think my main issue with this record is that this kind of music just isn’t me anymore, and it hasn’t been for a number of years now, which is why very little from Gore is appealing.

However, I will give Deftones credit in two areas—one is that they made a big enough impact on me that whenever they do put out a new record, I am willing to give it a chance, and two—that they are still at it, despite the tensions that still run in the group, causing them to almost call it a day more than once.

They could be coasting on the goodwill of nostalgia, touring and playing White Pony from start to finish (and maybe they will in 2020) but while many of the late 90s boom of metal and hard rock outfits fizzled out a long time ago, Deftones are still here, and still fighting to remain relevant in the marketplace. That alone is commendable.

If you’ve grown with, rather than grown out of, the band, then Gore will probably be a welcome listen for you. But for fans (like myself) that have aged out of this kind of music, it will probably a nostalgia trip you will only take once or twice, if that.

Gore is out now via Reprise.