Getting Reacquainted with the Deftones

While clearing out my '2010 second listen' playlist in iTunes, I came across the Deftones' Diamond Eyes. This led me through the digital rabbit hole to the other Deftones albums in my collection... White Pony definitely stands up as a great album, it even featured a Grammy award winning song.
It's been interesting listening to these albums again... It's like I've unlocked a digital time capsule... This was one of my favourite bands in high school, and to go back to them after so long was like getting in touch with an old friend.
The group has gone through a few sonic and stylistic changes over the years... This is "Root" from their first LP, Adrenaline. The song draws mainly on thrash metal, and has a pretty heavy sound. In fact, this would have qualified under the brutally titled 'nu-metal' moniker.

Two albums later the band is into some much more complex emotional territory on this track featuring Tool's vocalist Maynard James Keenan, "Passenger":

On this 2003 lead single from their self titled album, the band touches the Pixies and My Bloody Valentine with the loud-soft and layered sound of "Minerva":

Teaming up with producer Bob Ezrin for their 2006 album Saturday Night Wrist, the band really gets close to power pop with this melodically clean and sonically concise lead single, "Hole in the Earth". This song is definitely geared for radio... listen to how the lead vocals are restrained, and pitch corrected, compared to the rough, raw vocal production of "Root" above.
Which brings us to "Diamond Eyes" from 2010. This song is a culmination of everything they've done in their career... Crushing verses, melodic, layered choruses, solid build in the bridge and a noisy outro all set to a prog time signature. Could be the perfect Deftones song.
The band is in fine form, Chino's back to good health (see above video), Chi has returned from his devastating car accident, and the drummer's wearing a backwards baseball cap. It's all here:

As for the rest of the album? Above I mentioned it was on a second listen playlist I created, so that should give you an idea of what I think about that album.
It's been pretty fun the past few days to check in with this band that I used to listen to a ton back in the day, but have listened to less in lately. Hopefully there will be more features like this to come.