No “Koi No Yokan” for new Deftones elpee

The Japanese word “Koi No Yokan” is used to describe the feeling of love at first sight.

I did not fall in love with The Deftones Koi No Yokan at first listen, nor during the second listen. IT’S MERELY OK, OK? I must disclose, however, that I am not, nor ever have been much of a fan of anything marketed as “Alternative Metal.” The vast majority of what I’ve found beneath that moniker is emotionally hollow at its core, and almost always ends up trying to fill that hollowness with overwrought bombast. In the year 2000, I took to calling it “Bombastica” for a short time.

In that year, The Deftones’ White Pony ran counter to the “Bombastica” aesthetic, effectively taking songs from whispers to screams and somehow threading them with what seemed like real feelings. In an “Alt Metal” world gone brutally stupid with the likes of Limp Bizkit leading the charge, White Pony sounded like The White Album by contrast.

Koi No Yokan is as clean and polished and powerful as a brand new Dodge Charger, but I’ve heard these songs before, just not in the same musical/lyrical sequences. It’s “White Pony 2012,” but what’s worse to my old ears is that much of the sound created here is an echo of music made even earlier. The best thing found on Koi No Yokan is the opener, “Swerve City.” It’s a glorious riff and frontman Chino Moreno’s harmonies reach well up into the skies, but that riff was done better all over Helmet’s major label debut in 1992.

After the initial thrill of the opening track, Koi No Yokan settles into cruise control and becomes the finely crafted major label alternative metal release it’s intended to be, hitting all the market research bulletpoints it needs to and making thousands of suburban late-twentysomethings with Biohazard tattoos very happy.