This is why it’s no surprise that there is a real sense of misery on this album, something rather alien within Deftones’ work. The album title Saturday Night Wrist alludes to the nerve damage a user gets from falling asleep on their arm - one of those lonely nights when, according to Chino, “your only best friend is your shaking wrist.” All of this paired with the dissolving of his marriage seemed to lead to intense feelings of isolation and confusion. Singer and guitarist Chino Moreno decried this, saying he was the one, despite his compromised state, who had to put the album together. The rock group that had famously recorded their debut album practically live was now recording their parts alone in the studio, one by one. The band’s tight-knit bond, dating back to the 80s when they were teenagers in suburban Sacramento, was severely eroding. The hard drug use that started way back in the White Pony era, and had manifested in the darkness of their self-titled fourth record, was pushing them to their breaking point. Rather, it was a time of earthy albums that could certainly be challenging, but also work as mood music for your coffee shop.īut, coolness aside, Deftones were bone-tired. Art rock reigned supreme, and not the type that combined eight-string chugs with digital snare rushes. Hell, even the early aughts garage-rockers that seemed to make nü metal instantly irrelevant were looking passé by then. With their fifth studio album, Saturday Night Wrist - which turned 15 this Halloween - many of the adolescents who chose their brand of sleek, moody alt-metal over Limp Bizkit’s cornball party anthems, or Korn’s gaudy goth-funk, decided that even the Deftones were still too Nü for 2006. It made them as much of a household of a name as they ever would be, and a healthy alternative to the metal bands who were rhyming “nookie” with “cookie.”īut six years and one commercially disappointing self-titled album later, Deftones seemed to be at an impasse, coolness-wise. Creative heights and golden ages can be debated, but the sales can’t be denied: White Pony was their commercial apex. It had all the style, all the cool, but also: all the hooks. They reached what many consider to be their creative peak with 2000’s White Pony, which both solidified and diversified their sound, marrying sexy slow jams, crushing riffs, and ghostly electronics, often all on one song. With 1995’s Adrenaline and 1997’s Around the Fur, Deftones’ aggressive mixture of groove metal, post-hardcore, and shoegaze helped define the genre of nü-metal - and subvert it simultaneously.
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