Deftones: Diamond Eyes

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
There are moments on Deftones’ first new disc since 2006—and first without bassist Chi Cheng, who’s been in a minimally conscious state since a 2008 car accident—that sound a bit like a band on auto-pilot. Luckily, though, the title track and “Royal” stomp such limp moments with pleasingly crude riffs that claw and scrape through the verses, then release Chino Moreno’s voice into glimmering, menacing choruses. Moreno and guitarist Stephen Carpenter shove back and forth on “CMND/CTRL” as if trying to slam each other off-beat, charging up the tension and nuance that so many of Deftones’ hard-rock contemporaries lack.