Is SNW really that dark of an album?

[Freedomsoldier17]

Hey, I've been thinking about SNW a bit, and I've noticed a lot of people think it was a pretty dark and experimental album. The experimental part is dead right, but was it really that dark? I mean, the atmosphere seems to contain a lot more spaceyness as with Beware, Cherry Waves, Xerces, and U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Select, Start. I mean, I can hear definitely hear some darkness and anger with Rapture, Rats!Rats!Rats!, and some of Combat, but other than that, I have a hard time deciphering it. Maybe it could be because of the aggressiveness, I don't know. What do you think?

[Northcal]

SNW 5/10 dark/depressed album⛅ ST2003 8/10 heavy/dark

[buddyboy101]

The loneliness, desperation, and misery in SNW are palpable - and, unlike S/T, not in a good way.  The band was out of shape in every sense of the phrase.  They sounded uninspired and at the end of their rope - with gems like Combat and Kimdrakula making the otherwise lull of creativity even more stark.  Rats and Rapture are songs of agony.  Beware is pure remorse.  The rest of the bunch are half-baked thoughts that were settled on to simply put out a record.  I don't find this album experimental at all.  Sure it had their first and only instrumental track - but it's not a particularly moving composition, and perhaps the lack of vocals actually belies a lack of creativity rather than some avant garde statement.  SNW was by far their most tortured recording and not one I enjoy revisiting.  S/T on the other hand was raw and visceral - yes, a product of "dark days," but also a beautiful kind of ugly that really did push their songwriting forward with bold tracks like Hexagram, WGTB, Anniversary, and their wall-of-sound opus, Minerva. 

[tarkil]

I wholeheartedly agree with Buddyboy on this topic ! This is really exactly how I feel about SNW. I may just add that it feels so uncohesive, which suppresses even more good feelings one may have about it...

[Romain]

The rest of the bunch are half-baked thoughts that were settled on to simply put out a record. 

I'll just say :


Rivière


That is all.

[DeftonesNZ]

I would say S/T is definitely darker probably because it has a more cohesive tone, with SNW while it has some real gems isn't really cohesive enough themetically to be called dark as when songs build up some dark tension something like Pink Cellphone comes on and sort of wipes out the mood the prior songs had built up whereas with something like S/T each song contributes to the same mood. SNW really makes me sad when I think about what could of been some of my favourite songs are on that album but some of my least are too I can't help but think how awesome it would have been with a full tracklist of songs the quality of Riviere,Beware and Combat etc.

[buddyboy101]

Coming back to this Rolling Stone review of S/T 10 years later, it really is spot on:

http://archive.is/ZinU6
The mood swings like a wrecking ball on the Deftones' fourth album -- this is metal that crushes, then soothes; collapses, then soars. Headbangers will find moments of extreme violence to savor on Deftones, but this Sacramento, California, quintet also bears traces of blissed-out bands such as My Bloody Valentine and AR Kane -- art rockers who took overdriven guitars to rapturous heights. Singer Chino Moreno sounds like he's conversing with a choir of voices inside his troubled skull. He's the most Dada of the new-metal screamers: sobbing, stoned and strangely sensual, when he isn't shredding his tonsils. The band brings the requisite brutality, but this album delivers chills when it creeps past the margins of modern post-Korn heavy music: the spooky spaghetti-western drones that hover like vultures over "Death Blow," the space-is-the-place liftoff of "Minerva" and the ambient doomscape "Lucky You," which might be worth an approving smirk from the Aphex Twin. Just when new metal seemed utterly played out, Deftones blows open the possibilities.

[nicklav]

Word.

[sing blue silver]

The rest of the bunch are half-baked thoughts that were settled on to simply put out a record. 

I'll just say :


Rivière


That is all.

Riviere is a big reason I love SNW so much. That song fucking crushes me. Funny to think it was a song on the album I didn't much care for when it came out.

[nicklav]

Their album closers have always been highlights for me. Even What Happened to You has grown on me.

[nicklav]

My main problem with this album - as I have said over and over again - is Chino's vocals. A lot of the dark mood on S/T can be attributed to the way he delivers his vocals, and he could have done the same here. Instead we got what we got.

[godin]

I actually find SNW to be one of their LEAST dark albums. S/T definitely takes the cake for being their darkest IMO.

[pony_01]

SNW isn't dark. the band just dont have any idea what the album going to be. maybe somehow they "lost" on recording process

[Jacob]

I think SNW has a very dark atmosphere to it. It's a matter of what you define as "dark". For me, it has a brooding and foreshadowing sound to it that I don't hear in any of their other albums. In comparison, S/T sounds heavier and more sludgy, and I guess that's what a lot of people interpet as dark.

[Bifrost]

I would describe SNW more as melancholic than dark per se... to me S/T is dark, brooding and jaded; it was post W/P which was kinda their magnum opus and S/T was more the coming down period; by the time they hit SNW the band's camaraderie was coming apart and we all know about the falling out with Bob Ezrin and the different producing periods they went through to get it finished, the lack of cohesiveness is palpable; the songs that define that album to me: Hole in the Earth, Beware, Reverie, Cherry Waves, Xerces are all kinda sulky; there are moments of experimentation like Rapture, Rats, U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R, but I they dont really feel inspired and kinda feel like half-hearted attempts; Mein is probably the sole upbeat song on the album but that is not to say I don't like the album, there are some gems on there, most of those songs I describe as sulky are still my favorites and the Deftones music is always on the dark side for the most part, but if I had to say what is there darkest album I would probably say S/T

[Penicks]

desperate and sad is how i would call it

[III]

I think in terms of the song structure and melody, it is very unorganized and you can tell that they all just wanted to do their own thing.
However, ST is just the outcome of a lot of stress and anger from all of the members, along with the fact that they were kindof having withdrawl from WP. Plus they were all stoned out of their minds haha

[FlyingPiranha]

My main problem with this album - as I have said over and over again - is Chino's vocals. A lot of the dark mood on S/T can be attributed to the way he delivers his vocals, and he could have done the same here. Instead we got what we got.

Chino's vocals are my only complaint on SNW. His screams on songs like Rats! and Rapture are weak and almost cringe-worthy. But I love so many of the songs on it (Kimdracula, Riviera, Cherry Waves, and Xerces all rank as some of my favorite Deftones songs I can't really take much away from it. It was my first exposure to the band and it got me hooked.

Anyway, a random thought: maybe the cover has a lot to do with people thinking it's dark, since it's one of the most washed-out and gloomy looking one of the bunch. I know album art has a big effect on my first impressions of a record, maybe that goes for others too.

[illthrowROCKS@U]

I never really understood the SNW hate from the fans... I think it was one of their best, along with the Self Titled album.  Even if you don't dig it as much as the rest of their catalog , why so much hate for it?  The only songs that don't grab me are probably Cherry Waves and Mein.  It's pretty solid, but yeah.. S/T is their best.

[Talenca]

I don't think it really matters how dark they can be, I listen to them because I just like the songs they make. Does that make sense? That doesn't make any sense.