Adrenaline

DEFTONES | CHAPTER ONE

In all shapes and regards, Deftones in this era, the young and hungry Deftones, has potential. There’s no denying that. They certainly were coming out of the gate with something that could’ve been as mind blowing as Korn’s first record (we’ll get back to them in a bit) but without refinement sort of feels underwhelming in the genre of Alt Metal. Thankfully, this is pre-bands ripping off Korn and creating a new genre, so Deftones doesn’t feel like a stale concept, and actually sounds quite different from Korn (despite small inspiration which is slightly audible) so I feel the tag of baby Korn given by some people in the mid 90’s wasn't totally justified. Maybe because they were also doing something different and because they came out the year after Korn’s debut record that they were labelled that way, but regardless, humble beginnings.

I haven’t heard many projects in regards to Deftones, my only foray being that of their 2000 hit record White Pony and some other loose singles, but in comparison I can already tell this is underwhelming in their discography, and certainly not the best to come. The mixing isn’t great as the guitars are somewhat flimsy and Chino seems buried 90% of the time, and even without him sounding buried he’s also kind of mumbling a lot on this record so his lyrics aren’t the most comprehensible thing there is, especially on the rapping. There’s some very weird production choices that you can tell were made by a young band like parts seeming a wee bit under thought. The lyrics are a strong suit, however, as Chino is insanely cryptic. Like I’ve looked at the lyrics for Bored many times and still can’t crack it.

This isn’t a band in their prime, certainly as they’d just broken out and got signed by Madonna after being formed since 1988, and it really seemed like they didn’t know fully what they were doing, but Chino for sure has a dominating presence with his unique whispery singing and screech-y screams of agony (seriously I don’t get how he did some of those screams at the time) and despite the album being slightly a drag to get through and it feeling a little samey halfway through and me only really remembering three songs, there’s nothing bad on here. It’s just a band trying to find their footing, and they had a sound that if they refined it a bit more it would be killer. I’ve heard great things about their next album, though, so we’ll see if they refine their sound two years later.

Just a side note, like I said I only really remember three tracks so I won’t be doing a Favorite Tracks, Least Favorite Tracks thing but the ones I enjoy and remember the most are Bored, 7 Words and Fireal.

(63 - 53

I was highballing that score. Remarkably fuckin boring. Sounds like a local band. I like bored tho)