Deftones - "Saturday Night Wrist" (Maverick)

"Saturday Night Wrist", the new album by the Deftones, got a fair bit of airplay on my travels. I had read a lot of excellent reviews of this album and decided to buy it. Many have being hailing it as a return to form. I wouldn't say that, though, because in my book they have went off the boil, in the first place.

The band have always, unfairly, been lumped in with the laboured nu-metal scene, but in stark conrast, share similar experimental tendencies with the likes of Tool.

On this release, they excel when they combine their best attributes. Crushingly heavy guitars, a real sense of melody and some nice atmospheric touches. "A Hole In The Earth" and "Cheery Waves" being prime examples. The former, in fact, is highly infectious with a huge singalong chorus.

Chino Moreno's love of bands such as The Cure and Depeche Mode, ensures there are plenty of vocal hooks. His ethereal singing style combined with the backing of a rythmn section as big as King Kong provides some excellent music here.

The album is let down by dirges such as "Rapture" and "Rats!Rats!Rats!", but the overalll quality on tracks such as "Mein", especially the Helmet-esque riffing, make sure these are in the minority.

The eerie atmospherics of "U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,SELECT,START" and the trip-hop influenced "Pink Cellphone" provide examples of a band smashing down the barriers of the style-conscious nu-metal genre, that in all honesty they should never have been a part of.