Three's Company

Keeping up with all that’s leaking and releasing is no easy task. It’s kind of like John Ritter trying to make it with both Suzanne Somers and whoever that brunette was. The opportunity of choice paralyzed him, and Don Knotts barged in with hilarious, if counterproductive, results. So here’s my chance to avoid Mr. Furely and get the girl(s?) with three albums that have recently hit the net.

Hopefully, I’ve learned from John’s mistakes.

Deftones- Diamond Eyes (****)
Gotta hand it to the Deftones, after their bassist car crashed into a coma, they shelved the entire album they had just completed. Part of it was processing the tragedy; part of it was their wish to someday play those songs with him. Whatever the reason, the incident pushed them to enlist Sergio Vega and record Diamond Eyes. A noticeable step up from the murky and directionless Saturday Night Wrist, Diamond Eyes finds the Deftones perfectly balancing nightmarish dreamscapes with crushing riffs. The stutter-stop drumming of “Diamond Eyes” and the bone crushing relentlessness of “Rocket Skates” illustrate just how ferocious the group can sound. However, the Deftones have always been a bit more concerned with atmosphere than your average metal band and this is where Diamond Eyes truly shines. “You’ve Seen The Butcher” features slow, crawling riffs as shimmering keys build towards frightening heights. Elsewhere, “Beauty School” balances the group’s interest in trip-hop as it’s set against hazy distortion. Okay, so the record’s not perfect. The second half feels rushed when it comes to hooks, and fans are still curious about the unreleased material. But make no mistake: This is the Deftones most sonically realized album, perfectly balancing crisp sounds with monolith-sized anguish. With an album like this in their repertoire, who knows where they could go next.

Key Cuts: Diamond Eyes, You've Seen The Butcher, Beauty School


Minus The Bear- OMNI (***½)
By now, Minus The Bear has carved out a sizable niche for themselves within the proggier side of post-hardcore. Chalk it up to their workman-like attitude. This is a band that doesn’t seem intent on changing minds, just making music on their terms. OMNI certainly reinforces that notion with everything fans have come to expect from Minus The Bear. “Summer Angel” features the familiar melting guitars, as well as Jake Snider’s smooth voice and jazzy flavor. Album opener “My Time” bounces along with electronic slides and wavy rhythms while “Animal Backwards” relishes in processed loops, pulsing beats, and all manner of blips. Yet for a band priding themselves in complexity, the disc is arrested in mid-tempo, even if the time changes are a different shade of mid-tempo. OMNI might display Minus The Bear at their most accessible, but their zest for exploring dynamics comes across as muted. As it stands, OMNI is a pleasant record to run through but one that fails to leave a strong impression. Maybe they need their fans to break up with them before they make another daring record.

Key Cuts: My Time, Summer Angel, Animal Backwards


Ratatat- LP4 (***)
It’s more or less easy to point out what works on the new Ratatat album, LP4. For one thing, the dorky duo of Evan Mast and Mike Stroud has pushed their playful glitch rock into more organic territory. Strings (And honest to goodness piano!) crop everywhere on LP4, leading listeners to believe they’ve expanded their palette quite considerably. Whether it’s the slow moving, syrupy build of “Bilar” or the weeping drift of “Mahalo,” Ratattat certainly feels more comfortable than they did on LP3. In fact, their more up-tempo numbers have become even more captivating, especially when it comes to the spazzy beats and synthetic fluttering of “Drugs.” Unfortunately, their arrangements operate on the surface, and the atmospheres aren’t nearly as immersive as they’d like you to think. For lack of a better way to say it, Mast and Stroud still write songs like Ratatat, almost to a fault. While they always come off as bright and upbeat, and maybe a little Legend of Zelda inspired, it’s clear that their reliance on organic instrumentation is to cover up their idling sound. It’s too bad; because Ratatat always show promise with their blurry take on electro rock. Perhaps if they blurred some more boundaries, they’d stumble on their watershed work.

Key Cuts: Drugs, Mahalo, Sunblocks