Deftones - Passenger

I consider myself to be a touch of a nu-metal apologist.  Hell, I'll even muster up a defence for a few limp bizkit songs (although their newest is astoundingly awful)  But if there's one band I don't ever feel I have to apologise for, it's the deftones.


Passenger comes off of the White Pony album which, for me, has to be considered the deftones masterpiece.  Haunted, strange songs that really don't sound like anything before or since.  Even the band themselves (in my opinion) have never equalled it.  The highlight of the album is the stunning duet Passenger which brings Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan into the mix as well.

The two complement each other fantastically.  Maynard's aggressive, powerful vocals that are such a signature to Tool's music are used here to provide a counterpoint to Chino's breathy melodic whispers and off kilter singing.  Chino soars on lines like "Drive Faster!" before Maynard undercuts him with the powerful aggression of his lines.  A duet is an idea not often explored in metal, but here it works perfectly, Chino and Maynard adopting different characters and turning the song into a mini opera.

Musically the song works as a package of everything that's good about the band.  The driving, palm muted riff calls to mind tunes like Bored before drifting off into psychedelic listlessness like Teenager, then soaring into a beautiful chorus like Minerva and back again to that powerful riff.  On the third return the muting is abandoned and the riff turns into a savage, aggressive little beast that brings the song to it's peak, before we return to the listless psychedelia then to that soaring chorus.  Arguably, it's the best song the deftones have recorded.

Lyrically the song paints a picture of backseat blowjobs that's at once pitifully ugly and tragically beautiful.  There's no sense of love or even particularly attraction to this song, though it's undeniably about sex.  Instead, there's a sense of desperation met with boredom.  It's impossible to shake the impression that the song's two voices are more in love with the excitement of the deed and the risk of getting caught than they are to each other.

If I was to recommend one song from the bands that are place under the umbrella of nu-metal (which was always kind of a meaningless term, I mean what exactly links Mudvayne, Linkin Park, Tool and Slipknot?) it would be this one.  Take a listen.

Posted in: Deftones, Music, Music Review, Passenger, White Pony