When it comes down to it, there are two types of people in the world:
Mac people and PC people (Mac!).
Cat people and dog people (dogs are cool, but I like cats more).
Korn people and Deftones people. Well...
Back in the day, that day being the mid-90s, I never, ever understood the fuss about Korn. Of the two bands, I heard them first, but I just didn't get it. I found their aesthetic too heavy-handed, and frontman Jonathan Davies' candid lyrics and "tortured soul" posturing cringeworthy and irritating. The banal, lumpen riffs they bashed out didn't help either. A lot of my friends liked them, but I didn't. In fact, I couldn't. They just annoyed me.
Soon after, I heard about Deftones and was reliably informed that they were similar, which immediately jaundiced my opinion of them. However, I found, upon listening this wasn't really true. Sure, the first Deftones track I heard, namely '7 Words', bore some similarities to what Korn were trying to do, but Deftones was a different beast, and hearing their debut 'Adrenaline' further cemented this to me. And yeah, the first album was decent (if somewhat inchoate), but the second album? Now that was good.
I think it was around 1998 when I first heard 'Around the Fur' and I was immediately impressed. Compared to 'Adrenaline', the production was fuller and the songs had more impact. What the debut record merely hinted at had finally been realised. In contrast to Korn, Deftones' strengths always lay in the elliptical poetry of their lyrics, the eclecticism (more apparent on later albums), the artful blending of sensuality, and darkness, and the inimitable range of Chino Moreno's vocals. From listening, it was clear that their influences lay beyond the obvious touchstones you'd expect from such a band, delivered with a sense of style Korn could only dream of mustering.
Deftones' heaviest moments are almost elemental in their intensity, but underneath it all is a sensitivity and elegance that really makes the music stand out, and 'Around the Fur' was the first Deftones album to really show me just how powerful that could be and it has stayed with me for that reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment