Diamond Eyes - Thoughts + reviews

[Dienekes]

Scene rip is circulating now.

yeap it scened.

i just got mine, and im about to solve the "is it mastered or not" fucking mistery...

What is the verdict???

[Slacker]

Scene rip is circulating now.

yeap it scened.

i just got mine, and im about to solve the "is it mastered or not" fucking mistery...

What is the verdict???

yeah it was pretty much it...

it just sounds a bit tighter due to the VBR, you can totally pick up more bass and overall layers.

im guessing the itunes release will follow this trend too.

awesome.

[Moz]

BBC review: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/jd28

very positive

[Moz]

hmmmz im interested now...

[jesusinabowlofdirt]

the leak will sound exactly as the cd, same bleeps,same quality and same amount of bass:

It is the final version. The quality is 320kps. No leaks are ever that high in quality if they're this early!

It's clearly the finished product. Every song sounds brilliant through my stereo and all these little sounds people are noticing are either from Frank or because they've got a lesser quality than 320kps

[Dienekes]

the leak will sound exactly as the cd, same bleeps,same quality and same amount of bass:

It is the final version. The quality is 320kps. No leaks are ever that high in quality if they're this early!

It's clearly the finished product. Every song sounds brilliant through my stereo and all these little sounds people are noticing are either from Frank or because they've got a lesser quality than 320kps

You always crack me up dude! 

Now if only there was a song longer than 5 minutes....

Lol.

[Jacob]

wow, Chino's got hairy arms.

[Dienekes]

wow, Chino's got hairy arms.

Looks to have a new tat on his left bicep too...

[defsteve]

http://theblanketreviewer.blogspot.com/2010/04/deftones-diamond-eyes-and-white-pony.html

Sex, Deftones and Diamond Eyes [the White Pony comparison]. The EXTENSIVE/INTENSIVE Review.

Everyone who I've talked to recently about new music and new albums has probably heard me talk incessantly about how good the new Deftones album is. Honestly, it's not even out yet (comes out May 4th, 2 days after my birthday) and I'm always talking about it. I copped myself a copy as soon as it leaked because I could not wait to hear it. I just couldn't wait, I couldn't wait until May. I'm a music junkie, I had to hear it.

I'm a huge deftones fan and have been since about Grade 8. The Deftones were one of the very first "metal"/rock outfits I really got into on my own in my youth and they hold a very near and dear place in my heart next to old school Korn.  So (obviously) this may be a wee-bit of a biased review.

Review is kind of bad word to use when talking about this album, because how could one "review" such a masterpiece. This is one of those albums you just sit down, shut up and listen to. You don't have to analyze it or try and make sense of it or decipher anything. You just let it hit you. You just let it in. Let it make sense on it's own, in it's own time. It's one of those type of albums. However, for the sake of spreading the word on it's awesomeness, I shall speak on it.

This album features way too many great elements that blow your mind upon hearing it. Everyone who's ever listened to the Deftones knows how awesome White Pony is, and is probably familiar with that feeling that White Pony evokes in you once you've heard it the second or third time around. Diamond Eyes gives you that feeling from the first second you put it on. It totally cuts to the chase and kicks your ass from the very first listen.

Deftones frontman, Chino Moreno's voice dominates the album and comes booming through on the title track and album opener, Diamond Eyes.  Once the drums and guitar make their initial entrance and Chino's voice makes it's first appearance, things only get more intense and surreal. Moreno's vocal style sounds like that of an eager person with some harsh words to spit, and a soul on fire. The entire album plays out like that.  Intense. Emotional. Genre defying and beautiful.

I hate writing about albums around their release because all the hype that surrounds the initial release of an album only serves to alter the reception of the album. Most times upon release, the music becomes lost in a sea of press, ridiculousness, hipster kids who don't know how to appreciate REAL tunage and view music as disposable on their 1G iPOD and redundant band "image building" but honestly I couldn't resist commenting on this album because 1) it's the Deftones, and they're alt-metal vets 2) It's been 4 years since they're released a new album and 3) Diamond Eyes is just too dope of an album to ignore.

Let's take a wild ride into the world of the new Deftones' project, Diamond Eyes. Picture this: throw together all the wild stylistic imagery that Deftones' were trying to achieve on their 2003 self-titled release (visible in songs like Lucky You, Deathblow & Bloody Cape) , the sheer awesomeness and ambiance of their career defining 2000 release, White Pony, the heavy, very spacey atmospheric elements of 2006's Saturday Night Wrist (visible on: Xerces, Hole in the Earth, Beware, Cherry Waves & Combat) and the heavy guitars/drumming heard on their really early work, 1995's Adrenaline and '97's Around The Fur and you've got Diamond Eyes.

Album opener and title-track, Diamond Eyes possesses this crazy atmosphere that's predominantly focused on heavy guitars and lots and lots of drums working in unison to create this absolutely wild sonic force. Royal rings like a song that could've been taken straight off of Saturday Night Wrist and subbed in for Rapture on that album. The overall stylistic elements of both songs sound strikingly similar. However, Rapture is a much doper song due to it's stronger nature, memorable hook and fierce attitude, while Diamond Eyes' Royal is much more melodic. The guitar driven CMND/CTRL is very heavy and oh so thick. It's definitely a throwback to the old school Deftones that everyone, including me, knows and loves. CMND/CTRL is Deftones circa Adrenaline and Around The Fur. It's a great tune. The most prevalent line in the song is "Switching command just because I can...", this line is repeated numerous times and is such a bomb ass line because it represents the Deftones so well. Their ability to switch up their style on this album (and over their 22 year old career) while still remaining relevant and consistent is blatantly evident on Diamond Eyes. The album goes from a very heavy place to a very atmospheric place and back very easily and effortlessly. Songs like This Place Is Death, whose lyrical content reads like a tripped-out dream,  linger comfortably in between the heavy guitar & bass filled early-Deftones sound and the spacey, atmospheric sound found on later Deftones albums. This unique and almost perfect balance solidifies the diversity that previous Deftones albums, like their 2003 self-titled album, didn't fully accomplish. The transitions from each track to the next is seamless and intriguing. It's pleasently surprising how the sonic landscape on this new release can really drag you into the entire album and be in complete control of your emotional state with lead singer, Chino Moreno's voice and keyboardist, Frank Delgado's use of ambiance and atmospheric structure rendering you emotionally helpless and vulnerable. It's nuts and it's completely awesome.

Tracks on the album such as You've Seen The Butcher, Prince, and Rocket Skates are also amazingly well written tracks that are chalked full with guitarist Stephen Carpenters unmistakable stylistic influences. You've Seen the Butcher's lyrical content definitely slam dunks Moreno's attempt at making an album filled with disturbingly violent yet beautiful imagery that floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.  Track 6, Prince, also succeeds at opening up their listeners' minds and drawing an image of what sounds like Moreno's ode to the mind frame of an ignored stage performer, which he undoubtedly is not.

The first single to be released from Diamond Eyes was Rocket Skates.  Rocket Skates is a classic Deftones sounding track as well. It rocks like a tune straight off of Adrenaline, and it's got that Nosebleed, Engine No. 9 kinda vibe to it. Honestly, it's a great tune but due to it's chorus, "Guns, Razors, Knives", it's my least favourite track on this album.  While Rocket Skates is reminiscent of a Deftones-type throwback, it's not at all representative of how much the Deftones have matured. It's still a bomb track and by far one of the best tunes in the Deftones repository. However, in comparison to the rest of the record Rocket Skates is not nearly as good as say Risk; which is another heavy song that has that old school vibe reminiscent to Bored and One Week (Adrenaline). Risk, like Rocket Skates, has that old school vibe but still REALLY represents how far they've come as a band and how much they've matured while sticking to their old school roots. What I'm trying to say is that; you can still evolve and stick to your roots, without "dumbing-down" or regressing the progression of your writing capabilities and lyrical content as an artist. Kna MEAN! Exactly! You know what I mean, but I don't have to say it like that ("Kna MEAN"). It's unnecessary. I hope, for the sake of back-trodden artistic expression, that song was really just meant to be written in such a juvenile manner. Either way it's lyrically the weakest song on the album and I'm all for back-trodden artistic expression, I'm totally down with it (check this entire site) so I can't hate on it. Consequently, that form of expression, makes Rocket Skates the weakest track on the album even tho I do still appreciate and enjoy it. Rocket Skates, much like my site, is a ghetto form of artistic expression that may slightly bring down the credibility of an artist in the eyes of a few, but it's honest artistic expression that feels good, and it's something which many can understand, relate to and appreciate.

LASTLY!! We move now forward, onwards, to my favourite tracks on the album! Beauty School, Sextape, 976-EVIL,  and This Place Is Death are by FAR the BEST TRACKS on the album! Hands Down.

I've personally always been a very, very, VERY big fan of more melodic spacey elements that the Deftones have incorporated into their music later down in their career. White Pony was the shit to me. It is one of the 10 best albums of all time in my opinion. On my list, White Pony is UP THERE! So that being said, Beauty School, Sextape, 976-EVIL and This Place Is Death  are on par with some of the best tracks on White Pony for me (Change In The House of Files, Rx Queen, Korea, Knife Party, Passenger). Nothing can touch the level of sheer awesomeness that those select Deftones songs possess, and yet, stylistically these four gems off of Diamond Eyes are rubbing shoulders with some of the White Pony greats. It's wild. There's this small part of me that can't even believe that there are songs that caught up with intense emotional complexity and lyrical dynamo of Change, okay, maybe not the illustrious Change, but definitely RX Queen, Korea and Knife Party. I wasn't sure if the Deftones had it in them. Events of such brilliance usually don't strike more than once for bands and artists alike. Then again, the individual brilliance of one can never really be understood. I'm proud to be two of the ears and some of the fingers in this world that can vouch for the astounding brilliance that is Diamond Eyes, and I'm excited to hear what's on their unreleased baby, Eros when it comes out, if it comes out. The tracks on Diamond Eyes in my opinion are some of the best songs in the Deftones catalogue, with Sextape being at the head of the affair.

Beauty School, atmospherically, is similar to almost half of the tracks on White Pony; yet it's so different at the very same time. Where aspects of White Pony seem slightly, you know what scratch this, I can't even really diss it. I can't. There are too many epic, and I mean EPIC elements on White Pony that could never ever really be achieved to the same quality on any other Deftones album (the mixing, the concepts, the artistic direction, the programming, the features, etc.). Diamond Eyes is the closest you're gonna get to a White Pony similarity and they're not even all that similar. All the songs on Diamond Eyes are still so different from White Pony. Beauty School and Sextape really dig deep into your mind and soul. They hit you like a ten tonne hammer from the first listen. The production of those songs are stellar. Beauty School is crisp and clear and clean yet filled with so much emotion you'll need mood stabilizers afterward. It almost has the emotional complexity of Saturday Night Wrists' Cherry Waves, but with much less yearning and being lead like a puppet on Chino's part and much more demanding, leading and dictating. It's really sexy, filled with subtle sexual imagery (depending on how you look at it). Sextape is soo lush, vibrant and romantic it's unbelievable. It's one of those tunes you put on when you're cruising around the city with your main squeeze and enjoying a nice summer night. The thing about this tune is; the lyrical content of this song reminds me of the effect that old school soul songs had on people back in the day. That feeling that you got back then when music was honest and pure yet really intense and deep and meaningful. The feeling that I get now when I listen to old school music from a time before my birth. The feeling that's best described by visualizing the look on my mom's face when she hears Marvin Gaye or Al Green or Depeche Mode's Stripped.  Sextape has that feel, it's a song that gets me every single time. It's that vibe repackaged for my generation. It's soulful, and those who know Soul, know it's not about "Soooul". It's about SOUL. It's about heart. I've had this album for about a month and Sextape has to definitely be the most played song off this album for me. This song is just so amazingly written and Chino's vocals are ON POINT on this entire track. Abe Cunningham's drumming is insane, and the keyboards/samples provided by Frank Delgado just really put this song above all the other songs on this album. Also, the way that Sextape transfers so seamlessly into track 9, Risk, is also another highlight for me. I love little details. The songs go perfectly from one to the other and it's noticeable because of how soft Sextape is and how heavy Risk is. The transition is a perfect combination of soft and hard, it's audiable sex that's almost like real sex (tempo and pitch wise) which generally starts off soft (slow-tempo) then get's much harder (louder in parts/faster-tempo/aggressive).

If Diamond Eyes was really anything like real sex, Sextape would be the lead in, Risk would be the climatic point and 976-EVIL would be the comedown with it's smooth almost r&b flavoured groove and Chino's immaculate, pitch bending, high-soaring vocals. This Place is Death would be the recuperation period after the sex where you'd attempt to catch your breath from the intensity but couldn't. Beauty School would be the meet up, Prince would be the foreplay and Rocket Skates would be the "so this is happening NOW" realization moment, then Sextape would get the party started.

All in all this album is freaking dope. I'm SO buying it when it comes out on the 4th. The lyrical content of this album almost beats out their career highlight White Pony with it's intensity and imagery. The playing/melodies/guitar/bass/keyboards and ambiance/atmosphere are out of this world; there's mad throwbacks and you can hear hints of other albums on all the tracks. Where many other Deftones albums made mistakes in certain areas, this album picks up all that slack. Diamond Eyes is heavy hitting yet melodic, chaotic at points, structured at points and still retains the experimental nature brooding in the belly of the 'Tones since the release of Adrenaline. The same sort of experimental nature that was brought about by White Pony, solidified by their self-titled album and captured on 2006's Saturday Night Wrist in songs like Xerces, Cherry Waves, Beware and Hole in the Earth. Chino Moreno's vocals shine like sun, he's an allstar here, and it's nice to see him back in tip-top shape, utilizing vocal capabilities his imitators (oh, they're out there!) wish they could duplicate a fraction of. The arrangements and production of the whole album is slick, gritty where it needs to be and spotless in other parts. Even the design on the album cover is dope, from this alternate album cover to the original, pictured above, all the art work is beautiful.  Surprisingly, even with the spirit-breaking injury of their bassist Chi Cheng, who's their bandmate, brother and contributor to the art and music that they've created for 22 years, they've still managed to pull it together and create another astoundingly astute album.

I hate to give albums ratings out of 5 because I don't think it's fair to do so, it's bullshit really, but if I had to, Diamond Eyes would get a 6. A bonus point for the phenomenal Sextape.

There's this awesome girl I work with who is a HUGE Deftones fan and still hasn't listened to the album yet because she said that she has a "ritual" that she partakes in when she's listening to the Deftones. Her ritual includes time set aside so she can listen to the entire album with the lights off thus she can really take in all the tracks and become one with the tunage. Weird as it seems, it's amazing because she isn't the first person who I've heard say that about listening to music by the Deftones.  They need peace, solace and solitude I've heard. Supposedly, it's a pretty common activity. Hell, I've even done that myself once or twice; bumped my White Pony in bed, in the dark and chilled. It's an exhilarating experience. You can really feel the music taking over you, the excitement and the energy building in your body, in your chest, taking control of your very person from your ears to your mind. However, a word of warning to all you Deftones fans who partake in this ritual; Be Careful. Stay alert. This album is so good, it just might kill you.

You were warned.

http://theblanketreviewer.blogspot.com/2010/04/deftones-diamond-eyes-and-white-pony.html

[defsteve]

Posted today, woopah!

BTW anyone still have the promo shots for this album, large res? Thanks.

These ?

http://www.mlk.com/presse/207/1112

[Moz]

wow that review is all over the place

[dawg]

the visions interview is boring. nothing new, just a summary of events that happened around chi
also they had the chance to interview chino and steph seperately. both said different things regarding the band when they were asked the same question

[lahemi]

Too good to be true... *sigh*

[Dienekes]

the leak will sound exactly as the cd, same bleeps,same quality and same amount of bass:

It is the final version. The quality is 320kps. No leaks are ever that high in quality if they're this early!

It's clearly the finished product. Every song sounds brilliant through my stereo and all these little sounds people are noticing are either from Frank or because they've got a lesser quality than 320kps

The Leak is not as good. You are right Jesus. Listen to about 1:40 into YSTB and the electronic wind kind of sound is way more pronounced. For any Doubters listen to the last 10 seconds of Beauty School. The leak was FULL of hiss. The new one is pristine.

[Slacker]

the leak will sound exactly as the cd, same bleeps,same quality and same amount of bass:

It is the final version. The quality is 320kps. No leaks are ever that high in quality if they're this early!

It's clearly the finished product. Every song sounds brilliant through my stereo and all these little sounds people are noticing are either from Frank or because they've got a lesser quality than 320kps

The Leak is not as good. You are right Jesus. Listen to about 1:40 into YSTB and the electronic wind kind of sound is way more pronounced. For any Doubters listen to the last 10 seconds of Beauty School. The leak was FULL of hiss. The new one is pristine.

i think that the original files and vbr have something to do with that...

say what ever you want, the scene sounds better cause is properly ripped.

[Inkblades]

The most comprehensive, in depth review yet:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364837,00.html

[bewareofrats]

I really like to see that this album is actually in proper jewel case and not stupid paper case as seems to be the custom nowadays.

[bewareofrats]

Spot on, spot on. That review is DEEP.

"primal scream therapy". "Chino howling himself rawer than usual". Huh?

[dawg]

new interview up on the facebook page of their german streetteam

http://www.facebook.com/streetteamde

check the video section

[IN WAVES]

The most comprehensive, in depth review yet:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364837,00.html

haha Yes, I was thinking the same thing. So in depth.lol