"Finding new ways of playing heavy music softly, transforming depression into beautiful aggression—these are fresh iterations of the odd inversions at the center of Deftones’ artistic success. It can still be difficult to determine where they belong, and thus how to understand them: Are they the blushing romantics of the Family Values Tour? Are they humble heirs to the emotional grunge-gaze Swervedriver and Hum with a few misguided raps buried in the back catalogue? What are you supposed to think about this music? A nu-metal band writing about darkness as a source of triumph is no more unique than—or all that different from—a shoegaze band locating the signal of angelic harmony in the midst of abyssal noise. Still, something unique happens when all of these sources of heaviness—musical and emotional—are plugged in and allowed to feed back into one another. What is it? Deftones have been trying to solve this riddle for thirty years, since the very first song on their very first album. They’ve never sounded more at ease with not knowing the answer."

- Pitchfork