Three long years after the Deftones issued their self-titled album to puzzling reviews, the Sacramento quintet is back with Saturday Night Wrist, arecording that will further muddy the waters of categorization and expectation about who they are and what they're trying to do. After the breakthrough metallic-soundingAround the Fur, the band confounded critics and fans alike with the much softer and atmospherically adventurousWhite Pony. In 2003 they further transgressed the borderlines of all things boxed and tied with their self-titled album, which seemed to walk the line between rockist and "sensitive." But it's Saturday Night Wrist that fills out the portrait, bleeding though textures from one rock & roll type to another and coming up with something else altogether yet definitively "Deftones." The album began with a question and a small conflict in deciding on a producer. Already working with the hipDan the Automator, after some internal drama the band decided on veteranBob Ezrin.Ezrinpays off in a number of ways: these songs, as diverse as they are, are utterly disciplined sonically. They have all the tension and dynamic, all the immediacyof yore, but the mix is spacious, andChino Moreno's vocals soar above it. That said, the vocals were produced byFar'sShaun Lopez. The wall of guitar sound walks a high wire between harder, more metallic rock and angular indie rock, winding them together. Check the opener -- and single -- "Hole in the Earth." It begins with a wall offeedbackandthunderously distorted guitars accented by rim shots and cymbal fire before giving way to a skeletal sixstringfigurethatseemsbarelyabletosupportMoreno's singing, which combines the euphoria of a young, less pretentiousBonowith the attack of, well, the Deftones. Guitars echo and whisper all along the backdrop whileMorenohovers there, until they crackle and spit to bring him back。