Deftones – Koi No Yokan

Some things in life happen for a specific reason, and I guess one of the reasons we still have Deftones among us is the fact that they create and produce nominal albums every two, three or four years, depending on the circumstances. Also, the fact that they almost saw a bandmate, friend, brother of them getting killed, brought problems and questions, but the band managed to continue, maybe because Chi Ceng himself would like to see them not calling it quits. After gathering their pieces to the previous brilliant album ”Diamond Eyes” in 2010, released four years after ”Saturday Night Wrist”, it’s time for the seventh album called ”Koi No Yokan”, meaning ”Premonition Of Love” in Japanese.

A new Deftones album is a gift to music only by its release every time they do it. There are not much to say if you follow the band from the first crushing debut ”Adrenaline’‘ back in 1995 or if you learned about them later on the monuments called ”Around The Fur” and ”White Pony”. The only thing that changes is the possible experimentation and evolution to their sound and the variety of tracks they have to offer. This is the second album where bassist Sergio Vega participates and as the other members said, he contributed a lot more to the compositions of the album compared to ”Diamond Eyes”.

The album opens quickly with ”Swerve City” and in less than three minutes it has made you already able to understand you’re in front of a new masterpiece. It is amazing how much your mood can change with each track that follows. The smooth touch of ”Romantic Dreams” gives its place to the dynamic entering breaking riff of ‘‘Leathers”, a track which was used to promote the album before its release. ”Poltergeist” which follows and especially ”Entombed” make you realise that the Deftones you’ve loved all these years are still there and are not likely to stop giving you the chills for a lot more years to come.

Strangely enough you may think, the album doesn’t stop flowing full of great ideas and compositions. The production is superb, Chino Moreno‘s trademark vocals were and will always be an extra special instrument in the machinery of the band and this lethal combination of great guitars, steady rhythm section and stunning vocals raises the album so high that it rightfully gains a place in my top 20 list of albums for 2012 rather easily. A simple listening of tracks like ”Tempest” or ”Rosemary” will convince you strong enough even if you haven’t read all those mentioned above. And the most important thing of all comes in the end of the album.

After having listened to countless albums, an experienced ear can sometimes transfer to the brain the feeling of trust to some bands. Such is the case with Deftones which not only continued making music after their near-death experience with their former bassist, but they also made clear that nothing can stand in their way. Obstacles sometimes can only make someone stronger, more confident for himself and more honest towards others. This is what happened with Deftones and it’s one of these albums where we must close our eyes and dig them to the deepest depths. They deserve it for sure. The question is, do we deserve such great bands as Deftones in today’s fucked up world?

P.S.: May Chi Ceng fully recover as soon as possible!