Deftones – Saturday Night Wrist Review


Website: Deftones

Pioneers in their own right, the Deftones return with their follow-up to 2003’s self titled opus. While White Pony was their most ambitious work to date, I’m under the impression that Saturday Night Wrist eclipses’ their previous work. I’m not sure if they were wanting to create a concept album, but this album borders on it.

Without completely re-inventing themselves, the Deftones take the best parts of all their previous work and put it together here and it works marvelously. Granted, it may take a few listens to “get it”, but you will.

The first stand out thing on this album is the production. The almost ambient-like production gives this album a different feel than anything else they’ve ever done. With Bob Ezrin at the production helm (their first album done without longtime producer Terry Date), he takes this album is a whole different direction than anything else done previously by the band.

Abe Cunningham is also quite possibly at his finest on this album, creating a great backbone on the drums on this album. He keeps things fresh throughout the whole album. Stephen Carpenter (guitars) seems to have toned down a bit from older material, but he can still bring the heavy when needed, especially on tracks such at “Beware”, “Rats!Rats!Rats!”, and “Hole In The Earth”.

The only thing that doesn’t really fit on the album is the track “Mein”, featuring Serj Tankian (System of a Down) on vocals. The songs itself is somewhat repetitive and Serj himself doesn’t have a huge role in the song, almost playing back-up vocals nearly the entire time.

Other than that, this album may not be the Deftones best work, but it’s their most out there and ambitious to date. While it may not be better than anything else they’ve done, the Deftones know how to separate themselves from the crowd. If this doesn’t entirely kill the nu-metal tag that has been placed on them, I don’t know what will.