Band:	Deftones
Album:	Diamond Eyes
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	May 2010

01. Diamond Eyes
02. Royal
03. CMND/CTRL
04. You've Seen The Butcher
05. Beauty School
06. Prince
07. Rocket Skates
08. Sextape
09. Risk
10. 976-EVIL
11. This Place Is Death

Deftones was dead in the water. At one time they were the coolest band in the underground, releasing the sexually-charged albums Around The Fur and White Pony to increasing acclaim. They appealed to guys who liked heavier forms of metal, they appealed to girls who liked Chino Moreno's clean vocals, and Deftones began reaching a mainstream market that seemed impossible before them. Then...it all ended. Deftones' self-titled release and the experimental Saturday Night Wrist were not well-received; it seemed the band couldn't capture the same magic that made their earlier releases huge successes. After a nearly four-year wait, the new album couldn't simply be good, it couldn't even be great, it needed to be exceptional to convince disenfranchised fans to give the band another shot.

Diamond Eyes may be the best album Deftones has ever released. A more mature, high-production-value, sonically dynamic creation that does everything you expect from a Deftones release while re-capturing that magical lightning in a bottle. The intense screams are as brutal as ever, though they play more of a back-up role to the ear-pleasing clean vocals this time around, with the second half of the album being almost completely devoid of Chino's signature screaming. Diamond Eyes isn't so much a major change to the Deftones style as it is a perfection of what made the band so good in the first place. Imagine yourself on a wave of extremes; you never know what is coming next, yet it all flows together so naturally that you barely even notice the changes. An album with this many tone shifts can easily turn into an unlistenable mess, but what Deftones has managed to accomplish on Diamond Eyes is something every band strives for: it feels real. It feels like a perfect reflection of the various turns life can take.

= In Short = Deftones is a band that benefits significantly from modern production techniques. They have the freedom to play around with every sound until it works the way they want it to and, in doing so, they are able to craft a consistent sound that hits every imaginable emotional level without ever sounding out of place. Diamond Eyes is the realization of a long-term musical vision, the perfect marriage of extreme metal and mellow electronics. If you were a fan of White Pony-era Deftones but weren't as impressed with the albums that followed, I think Diamond Eyes is the album that can get you back on the bandwagon.