The Singles Jukebox

Claire recommends a Deftones/Far superduo with an ungoogleable name. (Literally! “Your search – “†††” – did not match any documents.”)

[Video]
[6.09]

Ian Mathers: Wait, is ††† just Chino from Deftones doing noisy synthpop? Did I forget about this? Was I not informed?
[8]

Claire Biddles: This time last year, ††† released a cover of George Michael’s “One More Try”, a swoony bit of December melancholia that also served as a direct acknowledgement of inspiration. Much like Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, Chino Moreno has always carried Michael’s influence in his vocal performance, and no more so than in his work with †††, his Depeche Mode-ish duo with producer Shaun Lopez. In “Invisible Hand”, Moreno’s croons are propelled by internal drama, lifting and surging in the middle of words. His lyrics are either enigmatic or nonsense, depending on one’s position, but the song itself is dense with narrative. Lopez switches modes and textures with every verse, laying a sheet of synths only to shoot through it with ten-foot-tall industrial drops; stabs of synthesised voices are weaponised; glass shatters as if in a locked room. Listening to the song, looking at the blue-lit model on the album art, I’m struck by the commonalities between the sheen of ’90s/’00s alt-rock and Michael’s contemporaneous “adult” period: the thread that links “Spinning the Wheel” and “Digital Bath”, ending up with “Freeek!” and “Invisible Hand” — the kind of industrial that isn’t made from scrap, but from chrome coated in silk.
[9]

Michelle Myers: What kind of Deftones girl are you? I’m from the Saturday Night Wrist era, but I probably would have told you my favorite album was Around the Fur if you were a metal dude I bummed a lighter from at a party in 2007. Anyway, I like this as an album cut, though I’m not sure it stands on its own as a single. Still, nobody does hot, sleazy angst better than Chino Moreno.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: I’ve said plenty about Chino over the course of my life, so let me go over to Shaun Lopez (or “Slopez” for those of us with far too much familiarity) first. At one point, this guy was a great post-hardcore guitarist, responsible for a number of great records with his band Far. “Love, American Style” and “Bury White” still get regular play from me, and even though that comeback album was bad and his post-Far band The Revolution Smile was some of the worst middle-of-the-road radio rock possible… the guy’s had great moments! Chino — again, I’ve said so much about my love for the guy! Crosses… ? Always getting worse! Part of it is that Shaun is such an unimaginative producer. So many of these riffs and little digital stabs of “hard clubby synthpop” just come off like the worst sort of adult-oriented electronica. Deftones have been mostly uninspiring to me in the last decade and a half, but if I wanted Chino doing his best faux David Gahan over Phantogram-level cliches, I know he’s done better. (Team Sleep was right there! And all their gimmicky electronica was perfectly in vogue with the ’00s!). So here I am, begging these men to get off TikTok, stop scrolling through legions of goth girls calling themselves “baby bats” dancing to warmed-over faux-’80s music mislabeled as “darkwave,” and get their heads back in the game.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Chino from Deftones going Dave Gahan mode (NOTE UPON REREADING: pun actually not intended, god) over a song composed entirely of bridges and final choruses. So when the actual bridge and final chorus arrive, they’re identical, no more tension to be had. The half-time bit at the end could have gone somewhere.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: I was kinda excited to hear Chino’s powerful yet silky voice rise over the swollen stolen valor of the 808 kick by Shaun Lopez, who also provides the newly drowned synth keys and seething guitar. But then they decided to add a Phil Collins drum track throwaway for the chorus. Big sigh. At least it’s only a test.
[5]

Alex Clifton: When the synths hit in the chorus this is pretty cool, but the rest of the time it feels like a knockoff Imagine Dragons song.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The AWOLNATION EP was a dud, so this will have to tide me over for yowling modern rock with self-conscious electronic production choices. (Well, this and the Pumpkins’ space opera.) Chino’s voice remains a marvel. His sighs still don’t feel like shtick, which is why I’m amazed at how much I enjoy them on the chorus paired with bog-standard synthwave.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: An expertly executed take on some shit I really, really don’t want to listen to — every big noise and faux-gothic tone here has clearly been assembled by true appreciators of a dogshit form. The hook soars and the bass breaks the speakers and oh my god this is so tedious. But honestly, I respect it — relative to the active rock and alternative radio baseline that these guys are pushing up against, this is a masterpiece.
[4]

Frank Falisi: That sound is stuck in me. You know the one. 
[10]

Tim de Reuse: An unnerving, staccato vocal sample and an pleasantly grimy bass stab segue abruptly veer into a competent synthpop cruise. It’d go down smoother if the lyrics reached beyond the vaguest tendencies of early-aughts nu-metal. By their tone I understand that we’re not happy, but I haven’t a clue what we’re supposed to be upset about.
[5]