Deftones: Deftones [MAVERICK]

Why you'll love it

This Maverick pressing was made in Germany and comes with a lyric sheet. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 in Canada, its highest-charting debut at the time.

This edition

• Lyric sheet included
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Following White Pony was never going to be simple, so Deftones went in two directions at once. The self-titled album is some of the heaviest music they've made, built on Stephen Carpenter's low G-sharp tuning, and it's also full of trip hop atmosphere and shoegaze haze that point to where they'd go next.

Terry Date produced with the band, his last Deftones record until Ohms, with Greg Wells co-producing most of it. "Hexagram" opens like a battering ram, while "Minerva" is a wall of beautiful noise that Consequence of Sound credited with bringing shoegaze to the alternative metal mainstream. "Lucky You" is a dark, soft trip hop piece with DJ Crook from Chino Moreno's side project Team Sleep and singer Rey Osburn, and "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" sets Moreno's voice against grand piano and toy piano. Rolling Stone summed it up as metal that crushes, then soothes.

NPR later held it up as a case study in how a band can turn its influences into a sound entirely its own. It reportedly cost $2.5 million to make, which works out to well over $200,000 a song; the vinyl, we're pleased to report, is rather more reasonable.

Also at Kops: more Deftones on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Maverick (cat# 9362-48350-1), a reissue of the 2003 album.