Deftones Frontman Goes Witch House
 

http://alteredzones.com/posts/1734/d...s-witch-house/

Deftones Frontman Goes Witch House

It's official: witch house has broken beyond the bedroom and into the mainstream like never before. Chino Moreno of stadium nu metal band Deftones just unveiled a project called ††† (not a joke!). The five-track EP, simply titled †, manages to use the symbol seven times in its tracklisting, shrouding his hard rock sketches with the aesthetic's trademark gauzy synths, rapidfire drum rolls, and overall spooky atmosphere (zoinks!). Congrats witch house, you've managed to inspire both the platinum-certified and the 14-year-old suburban kids in your short two-year life span. --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones via NME

†††: † Tracklist:

01 †his Is A †rick
02 Op†ion
03 Bermuda Locke†
04 †hholyghs†
05 †

UPDATE: Witch house band †‡† (aka Ritualz) is "SO FUCKING PISSED RIGHT NOW", says Chino is totally “stealing my shit”. (via Living Ears)


If you click the link or just search through google you can download the album for free if you give your email.

fuck yeah, ch1no don't fuck around, his projects are generally good. see, deftones is not as really a mainstream band as that article suggested, sure they get some airplay when their albums come out, but essentially that band feels underground and only responds to their fanbase not the magazine opinions, and further, enjoys the DIY vibe of side-projects. Too bad they fuck with Madonna's Maverick label which is about as corporate a label as you can get, the label took over ALL the side projects and forces release dates to be spaced for sales :(

but the deftones didn't get signed anywhere for their first seven years, and really didn't think they would get far when they signed in 1995, and then they really didn't blow up until 2000 and even then they are hardly big like consistent top40 bands.

also, my favorite thing is they keep the underground vibe, while they are a big crowd attracting band, they try to have small shows with they prefer. they like dive bar gigz but the can get arena sized crowds so they do both, and always have what they call "guerilla club tours" where they sneak in secret and unannounced shows at small clubs in between their big venue dates at the various festival tours they jump on each year.

for that I love them, to keep it undergroun while saturated in the mainstream is something really only the likes of sonic youth and (gasp) radiohead have been able to keep up even in the face of the soul crushing spotlight..

I just downloaded this eagerly :)

I don't know why, but I've always liked that song "Digital Bath" from White Pony.

Probably because of the synthy '80s vibe. It could pass for a Cure song if it didn't have that awful nu-metal drum sound.

Generally I think they're pretty bad, but I do appreciate the fact that they attempted to bring some originality and quality to the nu-metal thing.

I'm not gonna waste hard-drive space on anything having to do with them though.

I thought Ritualz would stand with more arguments against the obvious plagiarism, but i guess being trolled by Deftones' sympathizers is discouraging:
http://www.facebook.com/rrritualzzz

This is kind of funny, although i guess no one on the Deftones' camp would get as equally offended as Ritualz (then again, it's just a reactionary post with some sense of humor rather than an actual musical artifact):



Regarding the ††† Chino Moreno alternate project, there's not much going on here, musically speaking. A discussion on the merits of the use of the symbols that are the band's name would be more interesting than the actual tunes, in my opinion. I don't really see how comparing Deftones to Sonic Youth or Radiohead would be accurate, it just seems to me like you are attributing more merits to them than they probably deserve, SuchFriendsAreDangerous. I saw them a few months ago and while it was a good show, i consider they rely more on the energy and passion of the band as a whole (except all these years have had a toll on them), rather than on any exploration of new musical ideas.

I agree, but they still stand as the most musically significant nu-metal group, you can't deny that.

I am NOT A FAN, but listen to "Be Quiet and Drive"... it's a simple song in dropped-D tuning, but it could pass for an s/t era Foo Fighters song. It's just got that grinding, driving quality to it. It's actually always reminded me of a Pearl Jam song, to be completely honest.... guess which one. Heh.

But no- geniuses they are not. But they were the best of the worst, most definitely.

EDIT: what the fuck is Ritualiz? I'm outta the loop on all things Deftones. Haven't heard a single album since White Pony made the stoners in my high school sit golden eggs.

I meant in regards to remaining a bit underground and DIY deep within the mainstream music scene, something which only a few bands can do. Deftones and Sonic Youth both been around for more than 20 years and yet both managed to stay just far enough off the radar to put out stuff like this..

"We don't have any plans to play live, but we might release a series of EPs on our own on the Net. I don't want to talk about it at all -- which I'm doing right now. The main thing about it is, I don't want to hype it up and give people all these expectations. To me, that's what made Team Sleep so hard to do. It was supposed to be this underground thing that would happen whenever, and it developed so much hype around it that it kind of ruined the whole thing for me. Our idea for this is to just put it out there and whoever likes it, cool. " chino
dude, stop calling deftones "nu-metal"

deftones preexisted before nu-metal back when the were just rap-rock in the early RATM era of the mid-90s, technically nu-metal specifically evolved OUT OF the deftones with all those linkin park bands.. stylistically, deftones are more rap-rock then nu-metal, as they rely an purely hip-hop drumwork and authentic sampling, where as nu-metal is an almost cliched imitation..
this is fucking great album!
it takes all that trip hop style Chino has been fucking with since 1999 and perfects it, also adding the edgy and dark guitar work that was prevalent in early team-sleep and during the white pony tours..

I love this album, the imagery, the lyrics, the beats, the ambient sounds, the guitar work, the vocals, the samples, its perfect!

This is what Muse should be doing ;)

As pointless as comparing Sonic Youth to Radiohead, id say. The whole "Witch house" thing of the last couple of years has totally failed to inspire me, beyond a couple of good record covers. Deftones did always have that 80s goth/indie thing to them, far more The Smiths and The Cure than SY, so im interested to see if they have something of that in this little side project.

Ok, they're not nu-metal.... they're whatever you say they are, but they're not for me. Cool? Cool.

And I have some other suggestions regarding what Muse should be doing.... fucking themselves not being the last on the list.

great tune, actually the first deftones song I ever heard and it captivated me into their scene for life it seems..

by the way, even though I play it in a drop-D tuning for the six string, Stephen Carpenter of the deftones actually writes and plays all his tunes on a 7 string baritone guitar, so they are not open tunings at all, but the more complicated double chords (with fills included!!) which surprisingly makes his guitar playing a bit more precise,skilled, and even sometimes virtuoso than it otherwise sounds and is simplified in the 6 string. But the 7 string allows him to get several lower octaves with consistent sound quality and also have a heavier crunch without losing the integrity of the sound to the feedback. his signature style with the double chords (or the open chords if you drop tune it) is that "wall of chord" sound that typifies the first three deftones albums, but when chino started playing guitar he brought a different vibe and also got more trip-hop about things since White Pony and it pops up everywhere, including making Frank a full fledged member of the band rather than their secret but always there DJ.

deftones rule what the fuck

i love the first 4 deftones albums... but other than that, i'd much rather listen to team sleep.

Hah. I'm gonna go see them tomorrow.

Deftones not team sleep. I seen team sleep once. they put me to sleep.

really? thats a shame. were they really that bad?


i lived and breathed deftones when i was a pissed off slacker high school kid.
i'll always love this band. got me through some shitty times.

ill probably check out this chino project

this group really had me relfecting about deftones and why I like them.

in the indy scene, most of our favorite bands are composed of artists who play in several other bands we all like. In getting into a single band, you subsequently get into ten more bands and a whole scene even!

Thats why Sonic Youth is the shit for being in the mainstream yet keeping the side-projects theme going.

I also have always like deftones for keeping this indy ethos alive with several collaborations and side-projects over the past 20 years, so that to get into the deftones is also to get into related bands.

Good indy style bands are like a network of good musicians, not necessarily some rigid institutional structure. Even with like Dave Grohl or Jack White, how fucking good is Them Crooked Vultures or the Raconteurs?

this new band of chino's is NOT witch house at all.

p.s. "witch house" is dead.

By Catherine Fuentes
January 16, 2012 10:00 AM ET

†††
Tyler William Parker
Click to listen to ††† (Crosses)'s 'Prurien†'

In 2011, ††† (Crosses)'s EP † was named by Forbes.com as one of the year's Best Free Albums, and on January 24th, they will follow that EP up with EP ††, which the band considers to be a continuation of the musical landscape set forth in last year's release. ††† (Crosses) has also announced a series of four intimate California shows in support of their album, starting in Pomona on January 31st, and wrapping up in San Francisco on February 4th.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...#ixzz1jqrA8Zla

not even Salem is doing witch house anymore and if you think about it Bring the Neon War Home was a harsh witch house/dark rave album years before salem existed and the deftones are really boring so who cares