Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
As promised in my White Pony review here is Saturday Night Wrist, the newest full length CD release from the Deftones...
Title: Saturday Night Wrist
Artist: Deftones
Release Date: October 31st 2006
Record Label: Maverick Records
Distinctions: Debuted at number 10 on US Billboard Charts
Track Listing:
1. A Hole in the Earth
2. Rapture
3. Beware
4. Cherry Waves
5. Mein
6. U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, SELECT, START
7. Xerces
8. RATS!RATS!RATS!
9. Pink Cellphone
10. Combat
11. Kimdracula
12. Riviere
The Deftones have come pretty far since they released the last album we looked at (White Pony) - six years and two full length albums later, we now have their totally new release Saturday Night Wrist...
The album opens with an amazing song: "A Hole in the Earth". My god is this song great - it has the perfect mix of melody and easily drops in and out of fast paced and bone crunching guitar and drum work. The lyrics are well written and Moreno's vocals are great - an overall perfect song to kick off the album.
Then comes "Rapture"...this song reminds me more of the Deftones earlier works (pre-Pony), in other words for me - there's nothing too special at work here: the song is choppy, loud, and fast. Following it up comes "Beware", although better than "Rapture" was this song still stumbles into some territory I don't really like. It slows down a bit but eventually breaks out every so often - the chorus is great and overall you can hear the Pony-inspired sounds of this track.
"Cherry Waves" is probably the second most well known and liked track on the album. It's melodic, well delivered, and has exceptionally nice drum and guitar work throughout.
Even though adding in Serj Tankian (System of a Down) on back up vocals was nice, "Mein" still doesn't bring anything new or likable to the table - one of my least liked tracks on the album.
"U, U, D, D..."is a nice instrumental, something that we don't see alot of in the Deftones' music too often if at all (I don't remember any past instrumentals). This song has a great mix of bass, guitar, keyboard, and I would've sworn I heard a violin in there at the end of the song.
The melody and nice piano and drum work on "Xerces" unfortunately doesn't help at all to make the track stand out from the rest of the album...
"RATS!RATS!RATS!" is a lot like "Rapture" at the beginning of the album - it's fast paced, hard, and very very choppy as far as the music itself goes. The music will go in and out of different beats and melodies way too fast for my liking and this has to be my least favorite song on this whole album.
Thankfully "Pink Cellphone" finally stands out at the end of the middle tracks. Overall this song sounds more like it should appear on a Team Sleep album than anything else. This isn't a bad thing though. The whole song is has a nice slower beat to it with spooky electronic noises and instruments echoing Moreno's lyrics and a few monologues delivered by a female speaker throughout.
The next two tracks are not anything special. It's easy to compare "Combat" and "Kimdracula" to that of "RX Queen" and "Street Carp" from Pony, but one difference is that the two tracks from Pony were at least a little enjoyable if you took the time to listen to them. These two tracks on the other hand fall into that stereotypical Deftones sound and equation.
Finally come the end of the album the Deftones pull out a closer track that somewhat rivals even "Pink Maggit" from Pony. "Riviere" is a nice slower song that breaks out about halfway through and goes in and out of its quiet and angry moods. A great end to a mediocre album.
Saturday Night Wrist isn't anything special and I will warn those that liked White Pony but not other Deftones releases to steer clear of this album altogether. Wrist isn't bad but it revives all those older Deftones qualities that suddenly vanished in Pony. I would ONLY recommend buying this album if you're a true Deftones fan. Beyond that I would recommend listening to the album first before you think about buying it (most will NOT like this album). The link to the Deftones website can be found in the past White Pony review, but you can only listen to A Hole in the Earth there at the moment. If you like that song (which most will) then I would recommend buying the single for it - A Hole in the Earth Pt. 1 or Pt. 2
