The Sound And Some Fury

If Chino Moreno were a girl — and he'll probably take this the wrong way — he would be Christina Aguilera. The nu-metal that Moreno yawps as lead singer of the Deftones is the masculine obverse of Aguilera's teen pop; both are gender- and age-specific modes of musical expression about sex, self-doubt and self-pity. Both tend to be pretty awful. But Moreno, like his Dirrty doppelgänger, is perceived as being a cut above his peers, mainly because he can sing and occasionally because he can think.

The Deftones' self-titled fourth album has enough of the usual brain-crunching...