Deftones - The Studio Album Collection (2016) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

Deftones are an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California. Their debut album, Adrenaline, was released in 1995 after numerous lineup changes. Success was found with their second and third albums, Around the Fur and White Pony, including a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for the song "Elite". Their mainstream success continued with their self-titled album in 2003; however, sales were lackluster compared to White Pony. The follow-up, Saturday Night Wrist, was released in 2006 after a temporary falling out within the band due to creative tensions. In 2008, while Deftones were working on an album tentatively titled Eros, bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a traffic collision, leaving him in a minimally conscious state which ultimately led to his death in 2013. During that time, Deftones halted production on Eros and released Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan in 2010 and 2012, respectively, with current bassist Vega. In 2016, the band released a followup, titled Gore. This Hi-Res collection includes all of the Deftones' studio releases.

Adrenaline is an appropriate title for this, Deftones' debut album, as all ten tracks explode with repressed energy. Unlike many of their contemporaries, Deftones are very controlled even in the midst of chaos. The musical attack is precise and well organized without sounding mechanical or soulless. Simply put, this music is the product of a good old-fashioned band, with every element of the music fitting together nicely. One of the practical ways in which this expresses itself is the way that Deftones groove, a skill that most nu-metal bands have somehow managed to lose along the way. Throw Abe Cunningham's surprisingly sophisticated drumming into the mix, and you have a band that possesses a far greater degree of nuance than most others that work in the genre. If there is a weakness to Adrenaline, it is that there is a bit of sameness in Chino Moreno's whispered vocal melodies, which drags the record down a bit. On later albums, the band's progressive tendencies become more developed, but the more straight-ahead material on Adrenaline does not disappoint. A promising debut.

Tracklist:

01 - Bored
02 - Minus Blindfold
03 - One Weak
04 - Nosebleed
05 - Lifter
06 - Root
07 - 7 Words
08 - Birthmark
09 - Engine No. 9
10 - Fireal
11 - First [Hidden Track]

While Deftones still rely more on form than content, they have noticeably improved on their second album, Around the Fur. Their sound has hardened into a blunt, aggressive slab of metallic guitars and hammering drums, giving the album a visceral force. Deftones tap into the same alternative metal vibe as Korn and L7, and while they don't have catchy riffs or a fully developed sound, Around the Fur suggests they're about to come into their own.

Tracklist:

01 - My Own Summer (Shove It)
02 - Lhabia
03 - Mascara
04 - Around The Fur
05 - Rickets
06 - Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)
07 - Lotion
08 - Dai The Flu
09 - Headup
10 - Mx

Hard rockers Deftones take their heavy post-grunge ways to another level on their third album White Pony. Sensing painful frustrations and personal rediscovery with its allusive microcosm of an album title, the Californian alt-rock five piece were periodically stifled while making White Pony. Their 1997 sophomore effort Around the Fur was hailed to blast out commercially, but such pressure crippled the band musically and personally. The band struggled with leading its direction, trudging through weighed emotion, but White Pony was the tantalizing outcome. Deftones went soft, but in an impressive way, to twist around its signature punk thrash sound. Frontman Chino Moreno is still intense, and his sour vocals throughout the entire record growl and stomp all over mainstream movements. He is bored with it all. "Feiticeira" calls out against authority with textured guitars and gnarling percussive throws. "Elite" is sonically industrial and embryonic, as Moreno's beer-soaked vocals scream like Ministry's Al Jourgensen and Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre. Lyrically, Moreno is exquisitely mind-blowing, but his fear is also evident. Check out the fierce ballad-esque "Teenager" – the innocent days when life seemed easy can only be dreams now. Moreno's duet with Tool's Maynard James Keenan on "Passenger" is as equally tender. The first single, "Change (In the House of Flies)," is hardening in the way that punk can be sultry and not just pogo-skanking nonsense. It is honest, stripped, and exposed with it's flowing guitar riffs and haunting orchestral back drops. There aren't any lackluster similarities to Limp Bizkit and Korn. Deftones have forged ahead, unafraid to delve into the influences of The Smiths and The Cure.

Tracklist:

01 - Back To School (Mini Maggit)
02 - Feiticeira
03 - Digital Bath
04 - Elite
05 - Rx Queen
06 - Street Carp
07 - Teenager
08 - Knife Prty
09 - Korea
10 - Passenger
11 - Change (In The House Of Flies)
12 - Pink Maggit

Deftones didn't really have a hard time with their third album, White Pony, since it received generally positive reviews and entered the Billboard charts at number three. However, the class of 2000/2001 nu-metalurgists overshadowed the group in terms of sales, even if they retained greater critical respect and a hardcore fan base, who nevertheless still registered some reluctance in regard to the artier, atmospheric, post-punk edges on White Pony. At first, their simply titled eponymous fourth album seems like a retreat from that territory, since as it opens with "Hexagram" it hits hard – harder than they ever have, revealing how mushy Staind is, or how toothless Linkin Park is, even if it's a bit of a shame that Chino Moreno has resorted to guttural barking for singing. Deftones continue in that vein through much of the first half of the record, gradually working in more atmospheric numbers as the record draws to a close. That shift in mood has the strange effect of seeming confident at first, and then a retreat, even if the music they're retreating to is, by and large, more adventurous and reminiscent of White Pony. It feels as if Deftones feel compelled to strengthen their metallic roots and will sacrifice the very things that make them better and more interesting than the rest – namely, their love of art rock, whether it's via the Cure or My Bloody Valentine. They don't abandon this impulse completely – and when they marry it to their harder inclinations, the results are smashing, as on the lead single, "Minerva" – which is welcome, since even if the harder stuff is done well (again, better than their peers), it doesn't carry nearly as much promise as when Deftones don't play by the nu-metal reviews. When they do play by the rules, they're good, but they're great when they don't follow a map. Deftones sticks a little too close to familiar territory this time around – the sound is still good, but knowing that they have done a record like White Pony, this feels like a disappointment, especially because in its unevenness, it sounds like it is the album that should have come before this one.

Tracklist:

01 - Hexagram
02 - Needles And Pins
03 - Minerva
04 - Good Morning Beautiful
05 - Deathblow
06 - When Girls Telephone Boys
07 - Battle-Axe
08 - Lucky You
09 - Bloody Cape
10 - Anniversary Of An Uninteresting Event
11 - Moana

Three long years after Deftones issued their self-titled album to puzzling reviews, the Sacramento quintet is back with Saturday Night Wrist, a recording that will further muddy the waters about who they are and what they're trying to do. After the breakthrough metallic-sounding Around the Fur, the band confounded critics and fans alike with the much softer and atmospherically adventurous White Pony. In 2003 they further transgressed the borderlines of all things boxed and tied with their self-titled album, which seemed to walk the line between rockist and "sensitive." But it's Saturday Night Wrist that fills out the portrait, bleeding though textures from one rock & roll type to another and coming up with something else altogether yet definitively "Deftones." The album began with a question and a small conflict in deciding on a producer. Already working with the hip Dan the Automator, after some internal drama the band decided on veteran Bob Ezrin. Ezrin pays off in a number of ways: these songs, as diverse as they are, are utterly disciplined sonically. They have all the tension and dynamic, all the immediacy of yore, but the mix is spacious, and Chino Moreno's vocals soar above it. That said, the vocals were produced by Far's Shaun Lopez. The wall of guitar sound walks a high wire between harder, more metallic rock and angular indie rock, winding them together. Check the opener – and single – "Hole in the Earth." It begins with a wall of feedback and thunderously distorted guitars accented by rim shots and cymbal fire before giving way to a skeletal six-string figure that seems barely able to support Moreno's singing, which combines the euphoria of a young, less pretentious Bono with the attack of, well, Deftones. Guitars echo and whisper all along the backdrop while Moreno hovers there, until they crackle and spit to bring him back.

Tracklist:

01 - Hole In The Earth
02 - Rapture
03 - Beware
04 - Cherry Waves
05 - Mein
06 - U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start
07 - Xerces
08 - Rats!Rats!Rats!
09 - Pink Cellphone
10 - Combat
11 - Kimdracula
12 - Rivière
13 - Drive [Bonus Track]

A long four years separate Diamond Eyes from Saturday Night Wrist, four years that were sadly packed with peril for Deftones. Bassist Chi Cheng suffered injuries so severe in a November 2008 auto accident the band took a hiatus, eventually honoring prior touring commitments by hiring Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega, and eventually cutting a full album with him on board and scrapping a near-completed album in the process. Given this serious trauma, it’s only logical that Diamond Eyes functioned as musical therapy for Deftones, but the surprise is that it has little downcast lyrical angst-mining, preferring atmosphere to bloodletting. Naturally, there is quite a bit of roiling darkness here – they’re Cure-loving metalheads, it’s in their blood – but there’s shade and light, control of texture, with the band deepening rather than expanding. Above all, it’s a mature album: Deftones skirted the obvious response to their tragedy, realizing that the left turn is a more rewarding journey.

Tracklist:

01 - Diamond Eyes
02 - Royal
03 - Cmnd/Ctrl
04 - You've Seen The Butcher
05 - Beauty School
06 - Prince
07 - Rocket Skates
08 - Sextape
09 - Risk
10 - 976-Evil
11 - This Place Is Death
12 - Do You Believe [Bonus Track]
13 - Ghosts [Bonus Track]
14 - Caress [Bonus Track]

Though the band emerged on the fringes of nü-metal, one of metal's more unfortunate pushes into the mainstream, Deftones' steady shift toward a more artful, experimental sound has made them one of the more enduring and influential groups to come out of the '90s. In their continued exploration of the intersection of heaviness and harmony, Koi No Yokan finds the band returning with a warm, dreamy sound that feels more like heavy dream pop or shoegaze than light metal. Always finding new ways to use old tools, the driving sounds on the album feel more like they're meant to envelop the listener than enrage them, with a sonic gulf – created by Chino Moreno's soaring vocals and Stephen Carpenter's shuddering, extended scale riffs – so large and inviting, it feels like the only option is to dive in and explore its depths. This kind of push and pull between driving and drifting elements makes the album one that's best experienced by simply letting go and drifting wherever its currents take you. This allows you to fully appreciate the beautiful dynamic between songs like "Poltergeist" and "Entombed," which feel like a bomb and the resulting fallout, respectively, with the pummeling, bottom-end assault offered by the former giving way to the more open and melodic approach of the latter. While a lot of bands out there have been tinkering with the loud/quiet dynamic for decades now, what makes Deftones so special is their ability to do both at the same time, effectively blending the calm and the storm into a single sound. And even though it's a trick they've been pulling off for over 15 years now, it's one that remains, as always, impressive.

Tracklist:

01 - Swerve City
02 - Romantic Dreams
03 - Leathers
04 - Poltergeist
05 - Entombed
06 - Graphic Nature
07 - Tempest
08 - Gauze
09 - Rosemary
10 - Goon Squad
11 - What Happened To You?

As the title Gore suggests, the contents within are bloody and visceral. Yet considering the cover art – which shows a flamboyance of pretty pink flamingoes flying against a grey-blue sky – thoughts of pure violence are subverted. This dichotomy has been central to the Deftones ethos since their start. By combining brutality with beauty, the Californian quintet elicits deep vulnerability, all while assaulting the senses. They've hit another career peak with Gore, marked by some new directions and layered atmospherics that explore the different shades between the extremes. Produced by Matt Hyde – who also worked on 2012's Koi No Yokan – Gore provides enough moments of pummeling savagery to balance the fragility that the band can often tease. Those varied trademarks are reintroduced on the sprawling first single, "Prayers/Triangles," which vacillates between the slinking rhythms of guitarist Stephen Carpenter and bassist Sergio Vega, and the pounding heart of drummer Abe Cunningham. Vocalist Chino Moreno's screech – both gorgeous and demonic – crashes in as he howls about a "godless demon" and the "force divine." His banshee wail remains in fine form, sending shivers down the spine on the battering "Doomed User" and the feral title track. Both of these songs also house some unexpected Judas Priest/Iron Maiden '80s metal riffs by Carpenter, which intensify the sense of reinvigoration within the band. Effects man Frank Delgado buffers everything with clever sonic touches – experimental traces of mood that haven't been this exciting since 1999's groundbreaking White Pony – like on the hazy swirl of the aptly named "Acid Hologram" and the uncomfortably tense "Geometric Headdress." The juxtapositions that the band toys with are well executed on the ominously sexy "(L)MIRL", a dangerous invitation that could be a prequel to what transpires on White Pony's "Passenger." While it starts off comforting, the anxiety is amped up before its dark, walloping end. The core of the album does fine work progressing Deftones' sound, with a trio of highlights that kick off with the hypnotic, spacious "Hearts/Wires," carries through the cyclone of "Pittura Infamante," and closes with the enthralling "Xenon." However, the centerpiece of the album appears on the penultimate track, "Phantom Bride," which features Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell on guitar. This might be the prettiest song in the Deftones catalog, as Moreno's yearning voice soars above the sonic waves before a Cantrell solo sails in to meld perfectly with the band. This album may mark the band's 20-year anniversary, but Deftones refuse to rest on legacy status. Gore is a triumphant reminder of the band's ever-evolving sound and their continuing ability to push the boundaries of metal.

Tracklist:

01 - Prayers / Triangles
02 - Acid Hologram
03 - Doomed User
04 - Geometric Headdress
05 - Hearts / Wires
06 - Pittura Infamante
07 - Xenon
08 - (L)MIRL
09 - Gore
10 - Phantom Bride
11 - Rubicon


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