Chosen by Monk
Jodorowsky’s ‘Dune’ and The Deftones may seem strange bedfellows, perhaps no weirder than Jodorowsky’s Dune itself, but they were the two main influences behind my latest selection. As might be expected, the composite results of blending these elements together has produced something dark and strangely beautiful.
No strangers to incorporating pop culture influences and references to their sound (the name comes from a Dragonball Z story arc), as Cell Games started writing their new single in the wake of the pandemic, they drew inspiration from a documentary about the failed adaption of Frank Herbert’s epic novel ‘Dune’.
The track started out life as a demo Tristan brought to the band but after everyone took their respective hammers to the anvil it took on a different life.
The band instantly create tension through some delay sprinkled chords as the intro to the song; it’s the quiet before the inevitable storm we know is coming. The disquiet is then broken by an avalanche of double kicks and an empyrean scream. Walls of thick crunchy guitars punctuate the verse with a constant single piano key creating a sense of stress.
Lyrically it delves into dangers and pitfalls of hero worship, as exemplified in Jodorowsky’s Dune: how sycophantic devotion can blind to the emptiness found in false deities. The chorus opens up into swathes of soaring celestial guitars and vocals. Here in lies the tracks special alchemy, as Maximillion’s vocals are joined by Tristan and Deb on backing vocals, this additional tonal texture layers in another hook to the already massive chorus. Tonči and Deb are locked in throughout the track, the drums sound huge delivering gut punch snare accents while the bass adds a gnarly bottom end to the impenetrable walls of Tristans guitar.
The band weave groove with significant heaviosity and heft but still leave space for melody, harmonies and vocals hook. This along with the impeccable production make ‘The Optical World’ stand out amongst their contemporaries, and help bring a fresh contemporary approach the genre, helping rejuvenate nu-metal for 2024.
This continues through the art created by Jade Costello and the lyric video created by Keith Brogan. Both lean heavily into a modern brutalist art approach, the omnipresent influence of Dune is felt here with a speckling of retro-futurist sci-fi in the art.
Jodorowsky said: “What is the goal of the life? It’s to create yourself a soul. For me, movies are an art and it’s the search of the human soul.” It’s this search and mining of the soul that can be heard on ‘The Optical World’.