Deftones' Stephen Carpenter unleashes his heaviest riffs yet in new Sol Invicto side project

Deftones' Stef Carpenter unveils new Sol Invicto track
(Image credit: Olly Curtis/Future)

Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter recently got his heavy on with his band’s new album Ohms – in fact, the video for the alternately crushing and soaring (very Deftones-esque, eh?) title track showed off Stef’s newest toy: an ESP nine-string electric guitar.

Now Carpenter has upped the distorto guitar riffage with A Reason for Being, a new track from his side project Sol Invicto.

The grinding instrumental also features SikTh members Dan Foord (drums) and James Leach (bass), as well as production from Technical Itch and Richie Londres.

In a statement, the band said: “Even as artists who create music for dystopian times, we never expected to be actually living in those times. With all that’s happening right now, we have decided to share a new song and our music, which is our Ikigai, or, reason for being.”

You can check out the track above, or purchase it from Bandcamp.

Richard Bienstock

Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.