Often dubbed the Radiohead of metal, Deftones have always flirted with the more experimental side of things. Raised on a steady diet of art-rock, shoegaze and hip-hop, they’ve exhibited – via shifting time signatures – unorthodox song structures and a fascination with the obscure; a derring-do far beyond their alt metal peers.
Diamond Eyes, their sixth album, was crafted in strange times. A different record to be named Eros was meant to succeed 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist, written while lead vocalist Chino Moreno battled drug addiction and divorce. They’d even begun studio work with producer Terry Date (Dream Theater, Soundgarden) in 2008. But when bassist Chi Cheng fell into a coma in a car accident, the band shelved the record. Cheng died in 2013, and Eros never saw the light of day.
Instead the world got Diamond Eyes, a record that vied to replace the abandoned work’s darkness with optimism. Indeed, the oddly sun-dappled sounds that pierce through their grit and isms – two facets undiluted despite their collective change of heart – stood in stark contrast to much of their back catalogue.
![Deftones - Diamond Eyes [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qksTlo_1Tpw/maxresdefault.jpg)
The title track (since covered by Exploring Birdsong) sets that precedent in sparkling fashion. At surface level, it’s driven by Stephen Carpenter’s bending eight-string guitar riff, leaving acres of space for Moreno to croon in the verse before exploding with colourful suspended chords in the chorus.
Those chords never resolve, to reinforce the sense of being stuck between realms which haunts the record. It’s an uncannily hummable 11/8 groove, offering a very subtle but clever shift in rhythm as it repeats, indicating a desire to escape their purgatory.
The snake-hipped You’ve Seen The Butcher slithers to life with a gnarly riff, reptilian through its 7/4 pace, before dislocating even further in the breakdown section – skipping and adding beats to emphasize the song’s disjointedness, something the stomping chorus beautifully contrasts.
![Deftones - Beauty School [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/2bK4aeahcXc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Beauty School is practically a post-rock song, hinging off an ethereal whirring feedback, a concept that 976-EVIL takes and sprinkles in flavours of The Cure. Prince is tactfully unsettled, writhing like Korn in a house of mirrors, and CMND/CNTRL’s descending chord progression delivers a whiplash effect by cutting a beat off every other bar, as if being forced back in line.
Six years later, Deftones would drench themselves in progressive waters once more with the divisive Gore. It was, in many ways, even more out there – but it turned many casual listeners off.
Diamond Eyes excels by being a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s full of exceedingly smart and deceptive songwriting as their oddball dispositions lurk in every darkened corner without harming its overarching commercial appeal. Like swearing in front of your elders and somehow getting away with it.
