It gets old.” The results were extraordinary. “Music has been smothered with that complaining since the early-’90s. “I don’t like listening to people’s problems,” said the singer. It would be obscene not to embrace life and all the wonder it held. Moreno policed his lyric writing for any hint of angst or anger – standard topics in the Deftones lyric book since the word go. After much soul searching the band pressed pause on said record and re-entered the studio with placeholder bassist Sergio Vega, formally of Quicksand. Then, returning from his brother’s memorial service on November 3, 2008, Chi Cheng was involved in a serious car incident, resulting in a coma. The album we were supposed to get was called ‘Eros’.

“I don’t feel like it’s me, it’s this unconfident version of myself that doesn’t know what he’s doing.” It’s a shame he feels that way the album breaks much new ground the brilliant ‘Cherry Waves’ might be labelled shoegaze if it wasn’t so achingly raw, while ‘U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start’ – named after the cheat code used in many Konami videogames – is post-rock at its most interesting and energised. “That record is so unconfident, that’s why I hate it,” he’s said.

Unsurprisingly, for a record attached to so many painful memories, singer Chino Moreno isn’t keen on it. Who was also going through a divorce, and whose record label – Madonna’s Maverick – were insistent the band get in the studio (where they would bounce around producers until they’d finally settle on their friend, Far guitarist Shaun Lopez) and make something that would sell better than the band’s last outing, 2003’s self-titled, poor selling classic. A singer in the clutches of a speed and alcohol addiction. Their first album away from mainstay producer Terry Date.

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