User:GhostRiver/albums

Writing and composition
Ohms has been broadly described as alternative metal and heavy metal, with influences from progressive metal, thrash metal,  sludge metal,  dream pop,, gothic rock, and shoegaze. Many music journalists commented on the recurring theme of isolation in Moreno's lyrics, which was compared to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreno clarified that many of the lyrics on Ohms had been written in 2019, before the disruption caused by the pandemic, and that he had been inspired by moving away from Los Angeles and into a small mountain town.

Ohms opens with "Genesis", which begins with 52 seconds of synthesizer noise before Cunningham and Carpenter enter with drums and guitar.

"Urantia" opens with a thrash metal-inspired riff inspired by the Bay Area metal scene of Moreno's childhood, while the lyrics describe Moreno's regular bike rides and walks around a lake by his home.

Initial jam sessions for the music that became Ohms began in late 2018, with Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, and Abe Cunningham gathering in a Los Angeles rehearsal space to brainstorm. Collaboration was important to Moreno, who felt that a balance between the three founding members was "definitely missing from the Gore record".

Artwork and packaging
The cover art for Ohms was designed by Frank Maddocks, who had designed the cover artwork for every Deftones album since White Pony (2000). The cover uses 12,995 dots arranged in a grid. Fans had the opportunity to "adopt" one of these dots for a $20 donation, with proceeds going to the UC Davis Children's Hospital and to Crew Nation, a relief fund for road crews whose source of income was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deftones dismissed a fan theory that the eyes on the cover art were meant to honor the late bassist Chi Cheng. Fans cited a photo of Cheng that happeared to line up with the eyes on the cover of Ohms, but drummer Abe Cunningham dismissed the theory as "total coincidence and really kind of trippy though too if you think about it".

Release and promotion
Deftones began to tease their new album in August 2020, releasing a series of puzzles across social media. In addition to blacking out all social media, the band's official website included the numbers "0925", which some fans speculated referred to an album release date of September 25. They followed this by releasing clips from old songs on Twitter, which featured a Morse code signal in the background. The Morse code messages spelled out the word "Ohms". Several details of the new album were confirmed on August 19, when Deftones Tweeted the coordinates to a billboard in Los Angeles depicting the cover artwork, as well as the September 25 release date. The following day, Deftones formally announced the title, cover art, release date, and track listing for Ohms, as well as a snippet of the title track. The full track of "Ohms", as well as an official music video for the song, were released on August 21, 2020. The video, directed by visual artist Rafatoon, depicts scenes of a dystopian environment, alternated with footage of the band performing. Despite being the first single release from the album, "Ohms" was the last track on the record; Moreno told NME that "Ohms" was "a good scope of where this record's at, and as a Deftones song in general". In a separate interview with Everything Recording, producer Terry Date says that, while "Ohms" was "the first video, the first song they [Deftones] wanted to release", the track "wasn't a first single to [Date] at all". After previewing a 24-second fragment of the song, the second single and music video for Ohms, "Genesis", were released on September 18. Directed by Sebastian Kökow with live performance direction by Clemente Ruiz, the video for "Genesis" features Deftones performing the song in monochrome, with flashing lights and other visual distortion. Ohms was released one week later via Reprise Records.

One more music video was released after the album: "Ceremony", on April 21. The video was directed by Leigh Whannell, the filmmaker behind the 2020 thriller The Invisible Man, and depicts actress Cleopatra Coleman navigating a series of nightclubs before receiving a secret message from an old woman. Whannell was recruited to direct the video after his November 2020 tweet about being a longtime Deftones fan was noticed by the band's manager. That August, Deftones collaborated with Belching Beaver to release the Ceremony Double Dry Hopped Hazy IPA, a limited-edition India pale ale inspired by the song of the same name. Deftones and Belching Beaver had previously collaborated several times on music-themed beers.

Deftones originally scheduled a 2020 tour to promote Ohms, with support from Gojira and Poppy, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the tour to be postponed until August 2021. Although some artists chose to work around COVID-19 restrictions through livestream performances, Deftones opted not to play "an internet show with us in a room", believing that it was an inadequate substitute for live music. When Deftones chose to postpone the tour again until April 2022 due to continued disruptions caused by the pandemic, Poppy dropped off of the bill.

Critical reception
Ohms was met with acclaim by music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Ohms has an average score of 87 based on 21 reviews. The review aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album 8.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


 * Clash Music - 8/10
 * Classic Rock Magazine - 4/5
 * Exclaim - 9/10
 * The Guardian - 3/5
 * The Independent - 4/5
 * Paste Magazine - 8.0/10
 * PopMatters - 9/10
 * the Quietus - no rating

Personnel
Credits taken from the Ohms liner notes.

Deftones
 * Chino Moreno − vocals, rhythm guitar
 * Stephen Carpenter − lead guitar
 * Abe Cunningham − drums
 * Frank Delgado − samples, keyboards
 * Sergio Vega − bass guitar

Additional performers
 * Zach Hill − additional finger snaps on "The Spell of Mathematics"

Technical
 * Terry Date − production, recording, engineering, mixing
 * Andy Park − recording and engineering
 * Matt Tuggle − assistant engineer
 * Howie Weinberg − mastering
 * Will Borza − mastering