10 Most Essential Deftones Songs

While not the first single released from most recent album Koi No Yokan, Leathers was nevertheless the first song to surface ahead of its release, given away for free from Deftones’ website. It confirmed the fact that after the hiatus Chi Cheng’s accident had enforced on the band, they had come back stronger and better.

The album itself was back-to-basics in its creation, with the band opting not to overthink the songs too much in advance, and just see what transpired in the studio instead. “We just came in fired up and motivated to do something great,” said Chino Moreno, “It was all very positive. We had more songs than ever, tons of ideas."

Leathers begins with twinkling guitars, but these are a false dawn. It soon gives way to another one of the band’s heaviest riffs, before the kind of mammoth chorus latter-era Deftones have become famous for.

Incidentally, Leather’s mother album, Koi No Yokan has a title which is actually Japanese. It roughly translates as the sense that you have when you meet someone for the first time and feel that you are going to fall in love. Crucially, it does not mean love at first sight, rather the instantaneous expectation of love in the future.