Reprise Records – 2020
Let’s be honest with each other. No one is reading this review because they want my advice on whether or not to give Deftones’ new record a listen. Let’s skip the part where I tell you about why this is or isn’t a good album, and get right to the part where I help confirm or deny the things you were already thinking about the album you’ve already heard like fifty times.
For those of you keeping track, Ohms is Deftones’ ninth full length studio recording. It’s the first album since 2016’s Gore. But most importantly, it marks the return of Terry Date, who produced the band’s first four albums, most recently 2003’s self-titled offering.
Sometime between White Pony and Ohms, Deftones became more than an influential alternative metal band. By now, they are heavy music cultural icons. The notion I get from listening to Ohms is that this might be the first record Deftones have made where they are aware of their importance. It’s not what you think, though. There’s no laziness, no air of pridefulness, no allusion to band tension due to ego mismanagement. Instead, you can hear the band settle into the elements that make them so great in the most natural way yet.
Deftones always sound like Deftones. You can certainly hear the differences from album to album as the band evolved, moved through several producers, and lost bassist Chi Cheng to a coma and eventually death. But they always sound clearly and decidedly like themselves, and trying to nail down vocabulary to describe that sound is a futile endeavor that music journalists have been wasting their time on since 1995’s Adrenaline.
Having said that, never have Deftones sounded more like Deftones than right now. Terry Date’s fingerprints are all over this album, most notably in Chino Moreno’s vocals. From the first cut, “Genesis,” Deftones fans, whether conscious or sub, are swept with a comforting feeling of “Oh Yeah! I know that voice!” Effects? Microphones? Gypsy magic? I don’t know what voodoo Date puts on tape, but the familiarity in Chino’s voice shook me in a way it hasn’t since ‘03.
High points on the album? Most of it. But, the third track, “Urantia,” ticks all the boxes for the claim I made earlier – that this is the most naturally Deftones-y Deftones album to date. In it, you hear the load-up of chomping Stephen Carpenter riffs, but instead of launching off into the deafening crunchfest you’re expecting, drummer (and alt-metal rhythm section icon) Abe Cunningham lays into a heavy hip-hop inspired groove while Chino’s voice floats above shoegazy synth chords, before Carpenter’s signature riffing brings us back around.
If there is an element where Deftones are showing their age, it is in their lyrical content. After all, we are a quarter-century past the release of Adrenaline. The album is called Ohms – a word that refers to measuring resistance. This is not a political outcry or call to action, as is /becoming more and more annoyingly common. Not that we don’t all love Rage Against the Machine, but come on. Anyone can yell at you for not believing what they do. Instead, Chino urges listeners to look inwardly and ask the tough questions. Maybe the change we all crave so intensely won’t come from bringing the whole world over to our side, but from committing to our own internal battles, fighting them well, and making peace with ourselves.
Deftones are one of those rare bands that don’t have to struggle in any way to stay relevant. All they have to do is stay themselves. Ohms is one of the most “themselves” albums in their discography.
Our Score – 9/10
Reach James, the author of this review, at JamesUnderFire@gmail.com