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following
from thedeftones.com:
With "White Pony," their third Maverick album, Deftones have made a record as
erotic as it is brutal, as dynamic as it is hushed, as relentless as it is
gentle, as hooky as it is experimental, and as lush as it is tight. Firmly grip
your nerves and prepare for the defining sonic rush -- this "White Pony" offers
an emotional ride, with great rewards for those who survive it.
"I see
boundaries more clearly now than I used to," says singer Chino Moreno. "I'm
better at toying with people cerebrally than I was a few years ago. I'm better
at fucking with your head."
Back in 1995, we met Deftones with
"Adrenaline," a combustible compound of razor-blade riffs, rumble, rage, and
rap-ish delivery. The record, besides selling a half-million copies, laid the
foundation for the heavy movement that followed and continues today. Even then,
we heard hints that this was not a band concerned with traditions or bothered by
musical borders. Around the tempestuous bursts of hardcore were passages of
eerie quiet and vulnerability. There was something pretty in the skirmish of
feedback and cymbal wash, a mermaid surfacing in a mossy swamp. Chino knew from
the get-go that nothing enduring is ever obvious and so opted not so much to
outright tell a story, but rather cloak it in imagery for your imagination to
undress. As he sang in that album's "7 Words," "You and me are here alone, face
flat along the edge of the glass."
"I get letters from kids talking about
how a certain song affected them or comforted them," Chino says. "Their idea of
what it means is completely different from what I was feeling, but I would never
tell them that. If something affects you at all, it's good."
Two years,
countless packed houses, and one major riot in Arizona later, the guys delivered
"Around The Fur." No less ferocious than its predecessor, the album was pure
passion and well evolved beyond the standby whisper-to-scream trick. Deftones
spread to both extremes, seeking the logical limits of guitar savagery while
flirting with a Gothic or New Wave sense of spook and haunting sparseness. Chino
was more aware of himself and better able to translate what obsessed or
enraptured him into his words. "There's still blood in your hair and I've got
the bruise of the year but there's something about her long shady eyes," he sang
in "Mascara."
Rock and alternative radio played "Be Quiet And Drive (Far
Away)," and MTV played the video for "My Own Summer (Shove It)," a creepy clip
(and apt analogy) showing the band playing atop floating cages while hungry
sharks circled below. Ceaseless road work followed, including stints on both
Warped and Ozzfest. Somehow in there they found time to cut a mesmerizing
version of Depeche Mode's "To Have And To Hold" for an album saluting the
synth-pop progenitors. When they played Detroit with Black Sabbath on
Valentine's Day, 1999, they were unfazed when all their gear was stolen in a van
robbery. "Around The Fur" went Gold. Eventually, Deftones returned to Sacramento
and began the soul mining and arrangement experiments that would become "White
Pony."
By this time, the neo-hardcore sound the band had been so
instrumental in pioneering was the toast of our nation. Countless acts ran to
the proven formulas, but the Deftones saw no need to revisit the past in
creating "White Pony," only a need to satisfy themselves.
"We've never
talked about it, about finding a 'Deftones sound,'" says bassist Chi Cheng. "We
don't want to find a certain sound, and settling on a certain sound is not a
good thing. I think that's why our albums keep progressing, because we're going
with what we feel is right at that moment, not what we think we're supposed to
do."
Co-produced by the band and Terry Date (who did both of their prior
efforts), "White Pony" was cut at Sausalito, CA's legendary Plant Recording
Studios and at Larrabee Sound in Hollywood. The process was not speedy, but the
results, musically and emotionally, are stunning. Stephen Carpenter's wall of
wash and wail stretches from here to the cosmos; Chi's bass falls like a ten ton
anchor; Abe Cunningham's drums are beaten senseless; and Frank Delgado dots the
landscape with found sounds and needle drops while Chino unleashes surreal
tirades and unloads his cargo of uncertainty and longing.
A siren riff
opens "Feiticeira" ("a game show I read about in Brazil. If you win, you get to
drink milk from the host's navel. Somehow it evolved into a pretend scenario
about being kidnapped," Chino explains), and you're off on a volatile, visceral
journey. Stops include a blood raw hail of bullets ("Elite"), a warm slab of
murderous love ("Knife Prty"), and one ascending and ambling album closer ("Pink
Maggit") that manages to be simultaneously infectious, progressive, expansive,
and claustrophobic.
Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan co-wrote and
volleys vocals with Chino on "Passenger," an aphrodisiacal road trip of echoes
and twinkling keys punctuated by explosive choruses.
"It's about being
the passenger in a car with a girl who's taking you around the world, literally,
sexually, in a whirlwind of time," Chino says. "I can barely tell where I end
and Maynard begins."
Chino's hallmark abstractions paint even richer
pictures than before. They float from his mouth when he hushes, and fly from it
when he howls, and in both cases, they're something for the deepest corner of
your mind to untangle. In "RX Queen" he sings, "We'll fly farther cause you're
my girl. And that's all right if you sting me, I won't mind. We'll stop to rest
on the moon and we'll make a fire."
Of Chino's challenging, visual sense
of lyricism, Cheng asks, "What's good about listening to a song and knowing
exactly -- to the word -- what the singer is talking about? It's like a good
painting or a good book. I never ask Chino what something means, I want to know
what it means to me."
Midway through "White Pony," you'll encounter the
most beautiful thing Deftones have ever done - a song called "Teenager." Built
of swirling loops, dripping, trip-hop beats, and a delicately plucked guitar,
the song flickers like so many midnight stars on a night of sad nostalgia for
the innocence of high school love. Chino's voice floats and climbs softly around
the interwoven textures of a track that will surprise you in the best
way.
"I love to look back at times like that," Chino says. "That was when
you could take a true, deep breath. You didn't have anything to worry about
except 'does this girl like me?' That was as intense as it got back
then."
"White Pony" has nothing to do with trends or cliques or market
surveys, and everything to do with five guys' unswerving commitment to follow
where their hearts and heads take them, be it somewhere abrasive, angry,
seductive or scary. Deftones have an unquestionable passion for music, for the
release you feel in booming drums, screeching feedback, and gut-born screams and
the headspace created by moments of stillness. If you can't feel that desire and
intensity on every second of this album, you're numb beyond repair.
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