Moreno’s words scratched open visceral glimpses into unwell fantasy worlds. The song is a collision of sparks that already hung in the air around Deftones but which would blow up on White Pony: Moreno’s still-ocean verses and rogue-wave roars, an undeniable sense of melody underneath the downtuned guitar riffs and throbbing rhythm, and not just tainted love but a kind of desperate, queasy romanticism.īe Quiet And Drive (Far Away) pulsed with an escapism that you didn’t want to leave, and White Pony pushed that even further. That 1997 disc was the breakthrough before the breakthrough, and if there’s one song from that album that cemented the new dynamic and pointed the way to their early ‘00s vibe, it was Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away). Around The Fur soared where debut Adrenaline scraped. Part of that was down to Terry Date’s production, and another part was in the songwriting. It was on their second album, Around The Fur, that Deftones found warmth in their weight. “We would rather stick to what we’ve been doing for the past 10 or 11 years, do something that we feel comfortable with, have the faith that that’s what expect from us.” “This style of music is really big right now, so it’d be so predictable to want to jump right in and.take advantage of that kind of success,” said the late Deftones bassist Chi Cheng to MTV that year, referring to the nu metal phenomenon then at its peak, in a short news feature about the then-upcoming release of White Pony.

Their songs began to stray down haunted corridors and bend into quieter corners, and few wished for them to return to the Bored old days. Deftones went both bigger and smarter on White Pony, and their fanbase didn’t flinch. Some of the credit for the album’s power and longevity is due to that audience, who grew with them at this critical moment. Almost immediately it became one of those rare records, like Rubber Soul or Zen Arcade, that elevated its scene and pulled the band’s audience along with it.

That was the consensus even before it came out, and it still holds true. White Pony was the point where Deftones made their definitive leap forward.

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