Deftones’ sophomore bow, 1997’s Around the Fur, had no real bars, per se, but its aggression and imagery played just as well at Warped Tour, Ozzfest, skate parks, mosh pits, and other places where metalheads and hip-hop fans tangled dreads. What’s more rap-metal than lead singer Chino Moreno dropping in on Korn’s 1996 album Life Is Peachy to help cover Ice Cube’s “Wicked.” In both chronology and sound, Deftones’ 1995 debut Adrenaline was stuck between stations: not quite rap enough, but somehow missing out on the inconceivable moment when stone-faced post-hardcore acts like Helmet and Unsane were the subject of seven-figure bidding wars.
But Deftones were once undoubtedly rap-metal.
White Pony may have transcended the dubious genre by fashioning a truly new form from post-hardcore, industrial, trip-hop, shoegaze, ambient electronics, and synth-pop. It also created a context where Deftones could make an album about sex, drugs, and druggy sex that cemented their reputation as rock’s most unmarketable weirdos.
Yet, this was the music that moved millions of units during a prosperous time for the music industry. Always one step ahead, that bit smarter, sharper, more daring than even their closest peers, they rapidly outgrew the nu-metal boom from which they emerged, changed the game with third album White Pony and have proceeded to drive towards the horizon ever since.Īlthough the core dynamic between vocalist Chino Moreno’s art-rock fixation and guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s far heavier metal influence remains key, the collective has always been crucial, with Abe Cunningham’s pounding drums propelling the vision, electronic-specialist Frank Delgado layering it up since his arrival in 1998, while tragically-departed bassist Chi Cheng and his successor Sergio Vega add a warmth and fullness of body.Ĭhoosing just 20 songs to represent a catalogue this complex and universally rewarding feels almost reductive, but we’ve had a crack at distilling down what has made Deftones’ journey so fascinating nonetheless.Nu-metal was angry music-some of it sourced from childhood trauma and the despair of rural and suburban America outside the so-called monoculture some of it sourced from the toxic masculinity ingrained in that monoculture. Forming in Sacramento, California all the way back in 1988, and releasing eight outstanding LPs over the last 25 years ( with number nine on its way), Deftones have indelibly shaped the alternative metal genre while remaining a band apart.
0 kommentar(er)
