The Deftones debut, Adrenalin, was a raw assault that set the stage for the absolute angst of the band's sophomore album Around The Fur. The group had cleaned up their sound while losing none of the anger, dejection and sorrow that punctuated it. When they galloped out White Pony, their third release, they had perfected that delivery, and even experimented a bit on the softer side.

Overall, the rest of the band does a good job. Drummer Abe Cunningham is the premier talent on this release, testing time signatures while keeping a strong backbone for the rest of the band to play off. Chi Cheng's bass is admirable as always, but his most interesting lines are lost beneath the drone of the guitars. Stephen Carpenter, the lead axe-man, has some nice strumming and picking but when he hits the pedal, the sound becomes unremarkable. Frank Delgado rounds out the group, taking care of samples and keys, but his work is most apparent on "Lucky You", one of the weakest tracks on the album.

The first single, "Minerva", is certainly the most polished of the tracks to make the final cut. Lyrically addressing love issues, it is the lone track that captured the band's energy and emotions to the fullest. On "Deathblow", the longest song on the album at 5:28, Chino's meandering whisper/whine doesn't quite match the solemn strumming during the stanzas.

Perhaps it is a result of the band taking too much time to record, perhaps it was the influence of producer Terry Date, who knows, but after steadily improving over three releases the Deftones’ self-titled release is mediocre. While this average Deftones release is better than much of the new noise, it falls far short of the bar the band raised on their other albums.