Albums by this artist

White Pony (2000)

Interviews

Blowing Your Head Off
November 10, 1999

Deftones

White Pony

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Deftones White Pony Maverick, 2000 RiYL: Tool, Korn, Fugazi, Nirvana

On Adrenaline, the Deftones roared out of Sacramento, California, to bring a new gospel of angry heavy metal to the masses of alienated kids. Although that disc wore its Black Sabbath and Metallica influences somewhat prominently, 1997's Around The Fur stretched the range of the group's songwriting and performance abilities, molding anger into real music.

Both albums were instant hits for a generation that consumes and burns melodic grunge like Coca Cola, but hardly left an indelible mark on the genre. With White Pony, the Deftones have crafted the kind of top-notch album that Tool and Korn have been wanting to make for years.

The group has achieved a sound that is both classic and subversive. Drummer Abe Cunningham andbassist Chi Cheng make up a forceful and subtle rhythm section, while guitarist Stephen Carpenter and DJ Frank Delgado add color to vocalist Chino Moreno's passionate outbursts. The catchy brutality of complex songs like "Passenger" is matched by profound and erudite lyrics that deal with alienation and the meaning of life.

Where Korn and Tool make fundamentally teenager music, the Deftones here come off like adult philosophers.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.