“Ohms” has already been reviewed by some specialized websites in music reviews. Here’s the first thoughts on Deftones new record – “Ohms” – to be officially released this Friday:
1. Genesis 5:17
- “Genesis” leads the album with a floating introduction that quickly explodes with Moreno lamenting, “I reject both sides of what I’m being told // I’ve seen right through now I watch how wild it gets,” setting the stage for the album, sonically and thematically. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- Opening with an eerie synth intro on the recently-released second single/video, ‘Genesis‘ [the first being title-track ‘Ohms‘] it’s only a matter of seconds before all concerns of this being a lacklustre offering; are quickly put to rest. (source: overdrive.ie)
- The eerie, atmospheric opening of ‘Genesis’ gives way to a punishing riff as he, bassist Vega and drummer Cunningham lurch forward in unison. The band are experienced when it comes to delivering album openers as mission statements, and kick things off with aplomb, the song’s explosive ending crashing into ‘Ceremony’ with not a second to spare. (source: xsnoize.com)
- “Genesis” is obviously a creation story, but here it’s also a statement of purpose. This is what’s up. This is what we’re doing now. It sounds like what you want us to sound like (many of the production effects, arrangements, and vocal phrasings will call to mind bits of White Pony, which Date also worked on) but it also sounds like where we’re going. And just as an aside: Man does it sound good to hear Moreno scream again over magnificent foreboding riffs like this. (source: stereogum.com)
- Genesis, the latest single, starts the record off with Frank Delgado’s whirring synths, followed up by Carpenter’s White Pony/Diamond Eyes style of clean guitars, before switching gears and launching into the full track, with Chino Moreno’s screams welcoming everyone to the 46-minute journey that they are about to witness. His trademark style of ambiguous and impersonal lyricism returns, crooning words such as “So I’m leaving you tonight, it’s not fun here anymore” on second track Ceremony, or “I believe your love has placed a spell on me, I believe your love creates a space where we can breathe,” which comprise the chorus of The Spell of Mathematics. (source: bringthenoiseuk.com)
2. Ceremony 3:27
- Case in point, the albums second track, ‘Ceremony‘ is very much led by Chino’s hypnotic vocal delivery, twinned with Sergio [Vega, bass] and Abe [Cunningham, drums] piledriving a pulsing root that allows Carpenter to decorate with his trademark riffing. This will no doubt please fans of ‘Around the Fur‘ and ‘White Pony‘ when referencing the balance of sound on the bands’ discography. (source: overdrive.ie)
- “Ceremony” marches forward with a breathy, atmospheric sound that contrasts with its dystopian lyrics. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- The band are experienced when it comes to delivering album openers as mission statements, and kick things off with aplomb, the song’s explosive ending crashing into ‘Ceremony’ with not a second to spare. (source: xsnoize.com)
- His trademark style of ambiguous and impersonal lyricism returns, crooning words such as “So I’m leaving you tonight, it’s not fun here anymore” on second track Ceremony. (source: bringthenoiseuk.com)
- In between, Deftones treat you the slightly hypnotic ‘Ceremony’. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
3. Urantia 4:30
- The sharp teeth of ‘Urantia‘… (source: overdrive.ie)
- Don’t look at me. “Urantia,” for example, is where much of the album story canon comes from, I suspect. “The Urantia Book” is a text first published in the 1950s that attempts to wed religion, science, and philosophy, a sort of Bible Part 2, this time with an empirical method involved(?), supposedly delivered by angels(?). It describes the formation of the galaxies and millions of other planets with intelligent life overseen by God, and also follows the life of Jesus with bonus sidequests and shit that we didn’t get in the first telling. “Urantia”: It’s also a Deftones song. A song with riffs like staccato machine gun fire panned in the headphones so it feels like it’s all around you but paced just off when you don’t expect it, like I suppose how chaotic gun fire would actually go; I don’t know much about being surrounded by gunfire to be honest. And then in the midst of all that there’s a dude on like a toppled building singing Tears For Fears songs that sound like they’re about breaking off his romance with God. It also has the album’s first or second catchiest everyone-in-the-stadium-raising-their-hands-to-the-sky-to-scream-it-out-together chorus. (source: stereogum.com)
- (…) beat you over the head with an awesome staccato riff in ‘Urantia’’. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
4. Error 4:50
- (…) the up-tempo pulse of ‘Error‘ [an essential addition for their live setlist] come chomping at the heels, thanks to the ‘heft‘ of Carpenter’s chugging riffs, which ascends and descends among the architecture of Vega/Cunningham’s rhythm section. Beautiful stuff indeed. (source: overdrive.ie)
- (…) unrelenting “Error” reflect a longing for both passion and freedom. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- The metallic attack of ‘Error’ is proof of this, surging forward and pulling the listener along in its wake, with Carpenter’s chugging lead guitar the star of the show. If he felt slightly removed on 2016’s Gore, he wastes little time making his presence felt on its follow-up. (source: xsnoize.com)
- (…) both Stephen Carpenter and Abe Cunningham have their roles brought closer to the fore, the former in scathing guitar lines like on Error. (source: thesoundboardreviews.com)
5. The Spell of Mathematics 5:27
- As we hit the mid-way mark, ‘The Spell of Mathematics‘ opens with a low-end rambunctious intro, before Chino sings and screams a dreamy, melancholic melody that at times, echos the tone and delivery of one Robert Smith [The Cure]. (source: overdrive.ie)
- “The Spell Of Mathematics,” like most of the songs here, opens with an aggressive vocal before drifting elsewhere. The chorus delivers thrusting empyrean harmonies contrasted with Moreno’s screams, like a man in conversation with the better voices in his head. Then comes a second movement, with the song breaking itself down over the final two and half minutes into little more than a finger snaps beat, a martial snare, a tool shed bass, and a whirl of vaporous effects. (source: stereogum.com)
- “The Spell of Mathematics” soars with distortion and ebbs and flows between pummeling drums and dreamy vocals. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- ‘The Spell of Mathematics’ bursts into life with noisy urgency and a towering wall of sound that ebbs and flows instinctively, there one moment and gone the next, Carpenter and Vega involved in a musical tug-of-war as the emphasis alternates between guitar and bass, the song swept along into a mostly-instrumental coda that’s held together by Cunningham’s expressive drums – its compositional approach indicative of the record’s collaborative nature. (source: xsnoize.com)
- “I believe your love has placed a spell on me, I believe your love creates a space where we can breathe,” which comprise the chorus of The Spell of Mathematics. replete with Moreno’s melodic hums, bassist Sergio Vega’s rumbling bassline, and finger snaps which end the track in a low-key fashion. (source: bringthenoiseuk.com)
- When The Spell Of Mathematics or Pompeji go into their extended outros, they feel consciously crafted as transitional phases to let the album breathe, and they’re utterly fantastic at doing so. (source: thesoundboardreviews.com)
6. Pompeji 5:25
- Following that, is the masterfully-crafted, ‘Pompeji‘/’This Link is Dead‘. Two tracks that transition into one, displaying the unique poetic transportation abilities of Moreno, who in tandem with the band, manage to whisk the listener away to abandoned beaches/landscapes [seaguls included], all the while, allowing the arrangement to feel lightweight at times, but with unexpected anchoring twists and turns, before a delicate and utterly heart-aching synth outro, that bridges into the walloping force of ‘This Link is Dead‘. (source: overdrive.ie)
- When The Spell Of Mathematics or Pompeji go into their extended outros, they feel consciously crafted as transitional phases to let the album breathe, and they’re utterly fantastic at doing so. (source: thesoundboardreviews.com)
- “Pompeji” too finds Moreno juggling vocal attacks, but in even quicker succession this time, yelling on the up note then retreating to catch his breath for the next. The title is a reference to the ancient Roman city burned by the infamous volcano, a scene of devastation that left much of the area and its inhabitants entombed forever in ash in their final moments. “Jesus Christ, you gave your life, but we die in vain,” he sings over guitars corroded and rusted like a prolific backwoods murderer’s trophy-taker. “Ohh we drink from the fountain of intent, and ohh we choke on the water then repent.” Like the previous song, “Pompeji” transforms itself halfway through, this time into a spacious and cinematic meditation that sounds like the soundtrack to an A24 film where someone’s about to be killed for reasons they don’t quite understand by a force they barely know exists. It’s a devastated landscape, a sky full of squealing gulls bustle as a grindhouse synth note spreads out, the noise of water lapping at a shore, perhaps an oarsman rowing, perhaps a last breath. “We choke on the water,” as the man sings. (source: stereogum.com)
- The album takes a breath on “Pompeji,” with a more balladic temperament and swaying tempo. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- Delgado bringing home multi-movement highlight ‘Pompeji’ with ghostly keys. (source: xsnoize.com.com)
- There are quite a few of them scattered here and there, though, such as the synth (and seagull-sample filled) break in Pompeji (which harkens back to the ‘80s, and has a really strong Stranger Things vibe to it). (source: bringthenoiseuk.com)
- But there they are on ‘Pompeji,’ which closes with one of Delgado’s more gloomy soundscapes. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
7. This Link Is Dead 4:37
- Following that, is the masterfully-crafted, ‘Pompeji‘/’This Link is Dead‘. Two tracks that transition into one, displaying the unique poetic transportation abilities of Moreno, who in tandem with the band, manage to whisk the listener away to abandoned beaches/landscapes [seaguls included], all the while, allowing the arrangement to feel lightweight at times, but with unexpected anchoring twists and turns, before a delicate and utterly heart-aching synth outro, that bridges into the walloping force of ‘This Link is Dead‘. (source: overdrive.ie)
- That atmosphere bleeds directly over into “This Link Is Dead,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t about proper website maintenance. It starts with the sonar creaking of an ice shelf and notes from an angelic horn before a cascading pick slide delivers a — once again — especially furious Moreno working a screamed verse into a brooding chorus. It also manages somehow, with all that around the edges, to be the most groove-heavy and violently explosive of the album. (source: stereogum.com)
- (…) while “This Link is Dead” and “Radiant City” dive back into unstoppable ferocity and gripping guitars. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- The paranoia-fueled, groove-heavy ‘This Link Is Dead,’ which is probably not about your website’s SEO. And if you are looking for some ethereal brooding, they have you covered. Über-heavy riffage that seamlessly morphs into something hooky? Check. Rhythms that shapeshift from hip hop to hardcore? Check. And then there is of course Chino Moreno, who once again croons and screams as if his vocal cords still haven’t figured out what limitations are. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
- (…) the scorched-earth intensity of ‘This Link is Dead’. (source: xsnoize.com)
- (…) on a song like The Link Is Dead, proving just how deeply his stock as a metal vocalist runs. Indeed, there’s a lot about Ohms that makes it feel distinctly like a metal album. (source: thesoundboardreviews.com)
8. Radiant City 3:35
- (…) while “This Link is Dead” and “Radiant City” dive back into unstoppable ferocity and gripping guitars. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
- Vega’s energetic performance on ‘Radiant City’ opening the song up and allowing Moreno’s distinctive vocals to swoop in for its rocket-fuelled chorus. (source: xsnoize.com)
- The skittish strobing rush of ‘Radiant City’… (source: noizze.co.uk)
- ‘Radiant City’ has a very old-school Deftones vibe that at first feels a little out of place on this album before growing on you. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
9. Headless 4:59
- (…) the more dreamy ‘Headless,’ which is one of those Deftones songs that just wraps itself around you. (source: punkrocktheory.com)
- Second-to-last offering, ‘Headless‘, begins with an almost soundscape feel, before the Carpenter/Cunnighman/Vega chug comes to life, resulting in a track that wouldn’t be out of place on ‘White Pony‘. (source: overdrive.ie)
- The penultimate song, “Headless,” delivers punches with driving bass lines that juxtapose with buoyant choruses and haunting melodies, a contrasting dynamic that Deftones have mastered. “Ohms” briskly launches into expectedly joyous melodies with mesmerizing riffs and cathartic grooves, concluding the album on a much-needed, energetic high note. (source: ghostcultmag.com)
10. Ohms 4:10
Not reviewed
