Albums : Deftones : Koi No Yokan
Albums : Deftones : Koi No Yokan
Listen To Deftones : Koi No Yokan
Who Are The Deftones?
Deftones is an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California, founded in 1988. The band consists of Chino Moreno (lead vocals and guitar), Stephen Carpenter (guitar), Chi Cheng (bass), Frank Delgado (keyboards and turntables), and Abe Cunningham (drums and percussion). Since 2009, Sergio Vega has been standing in on bass while Cheng recovers from a car accident. They have released seven albums to date, with three Platinum (Adrenaline, Around the Fur, White Pony) and one Gold certification (for Deftones).
When Carpenter was 15 years old, he was hit by a car while skateboarding. Confined to a wheelchair for several months, he began teaching himself guitar by playing along to bands such as Anthrax, Stormtroopers of Death, and Metallica. Supposedly, the driver paid Carpenter a cash settlement that allowed the band to purchase equipment, but Cunningham commented in an interview that all was "a myth about how our band was started."
Carpenter, Moreno, and Cunningham were friends from their childhood, went to the same high school and remained friends through the skateboarding scene in Sacramento. When Moreno found out Carpenter played guitar, he set up a jam session with Cunningham, who played drums, and the three began playing regularly in Carpenter's garage circa 1988. After playing with several bassists, the band settled on Chi Cheng and recorded a four track demo soon after. Within two years, the band began playing club shows and later expanded their playing territory to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where they played shows alongside bands such as Korn. While closing for another band in L.A., after the majority of the audience had left, the band impressed a Maverick Records representative, the singer Madonna. They were soon signed to the label after showcasing three of their songs for Freddy DeMann and Guy Oseary.
The name "Deftones" was created by Carpenter, who wanted to pick "something that would just stand out but you know, not be all cheese-ball at the same time." Carpenter combined the hip hop slang term "def," which was used by artists such as LL Cool J and Public Enemy, with the suffix "-tones," which was a popular suffix among 1950s bands (e.g., Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, The Quin-Tones, The Monotones, The Cleftones, and The Harptones). Carpenter said the name is intentionally vague to reflect the band's tendency to not focus on just one style of music.
Koi No Yokan Review
The title of the new Deftones album, Koi No Yokan, seems like it couldn’t possibly be more esoteric or enigmatic. A foreign concept in a foreign language, it’s a Japanese phrase that translates roughly to the feeling, upon meeting someone, that the two of you will fall in love.
What that has to do with the album, Deftones, or anything else at hand is anybody’s guess, but then again that’s part of the point of the Deftones. Since abandoning the densely aggro music of their first two albums, they have become increasingly concerned with atmospherics and a crooning sort of enigma, and lead singer and lyricist Chino Moreno has gone on record stating that his lyrics are purposely cryptic, to the point of him not always being sure what their meaning is.
On Koi, Deftones have continued the diminishment of their own aggro tendencies, only this time around the emphasis seems to be less on atmosphere than it is on groove. While 2010's Diamond Eyes was something of a roaring return to form for the band after the devastating 2008 car accident that left their bassist Chi Cheng in a coma (Cheng has since regained a level of consciousness but his recovery has been agonizingly slow), the Deftones appear to have restrained themselves once again. Their murkyily metallic guitars still rear their ugly head on occasion, such as towards the end of the lengthy “Rosemary,” although in most cases they seem to serve the emotional arc of the song rather than be an end unto themselves. Even then, the overall groove of the song seems to be the overriding element, meaning that this time around the Deftones are making more heads bob than bang.
In fact, the Deftones are sounding less and less like an alt metal band and more and more like a spacey post rock band. While the album is almost uniformly alluring, Koi mostly floats along through an atmospheric song cycle without ever leaving an indelible mark. It’s a slight shift but an important one, perhaps indicating that the band has finally resigned themselves to being something of a modern-day, post-grunge, post-hip hop form of Roxy Music. Moreno sure has the crooning part down, having diminished his screaming here and having abandoned his rapping tendency aeons ago.
It’s a strong album regardless, although it’s never as hard hitting as their earlier records or even Diamond Eyes. Nobody really sounds like Deftones, who are always recognizable even during, say, the Cure-like keyboards on “Entombed.” But then again, maybe their stubborn insistence on making their music on their own terms and never making any apologies about it make Koi No Yokan the Deftones’ most metal statement imaginable.
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Sources : Koi No Yokan Album Cover Photo | Soundcloud | Listen To Koi No Yokan | Deftones Biography | Koi No Yokan Review
