Deftones Band • Page 168

They commonly refer to that album and the self-titled as "the dark days" and rarely play anything from those albums live as a result. Gore is another album that has stirred some controversy within the band as well.

 

Not gonna rank em all but always thought s/t was underrated. Miss their occasional guitar-free tracks.

 

I'm still not going to do a proper ranking, but I guess if I had to give a general idea...

White Pony
Deftones/Saturday Night Wrist/Diamond Eyes
Adrenaline/Around The Fur/Koi No Yokan
Gore/Ohms

 

Was going to say "Hole in the Earth" might be their best opening track, but "Hexagram," "Diamond Eyes," and "Swerve City" are right there next to it

 

Swerve City might be their best opener, but imo, i'd personally rank Genesis right below it. fucking love that one (even if Ohms isn't a fan favorite album).

 

Is Ohms not a fan favorite? Obviously, this is such a small corner of Deftones fans, but I'm curious how people feel about that album now that we're closing in on three years of it. Hard to believe it's been that long tbh

 

It's a very good record, like all of their records, that just happens to fall short of my top five

 

I don't have a single bad word to say about Ohms. Ceremony, Headless, Radiant City, Urantia are all top tier Deftones songs, imo. I can see it ranking lower in folks' rankings but that's just a testament to how strong their discography is as a whole.

 

I think it's a very consistent album, but not many songs from it would appear among my favorite songs this band has done. I love Genesis and Error a ton, but I think they are the clear highlights. Ceremony, Radiant City, and Ohms are great too though, but probably on another tier for me than the aforementioned two songs.

 

"The Spell of Mathematics" and the title track are the ones from that record imo

 

Spell was a song I wasn't too stoked on during my first few listens, but it's def a non-skip song now when I'm listening to my discog playlist

 

it is fine and a nice bounce back from Gore (especially from a production standpoint) but like you said there aren’t many standout tracks other than the opener + closer. I think I listened to it only once, I oughta go back to it at some point. I might have also been burned by pre-release hype, I’ve seen at least a couple people on here say that it was a top three Deftones record, which is wild to me.

 

SNW ranking is probably nostalgia based but ATF has some of their most iconic work

 

I definitely don't think it's a top three album from them, but I do think it's great and fits right in with the rest of their discography. Error is seriously one of my favorite songs this band has ever done.

 

Ohms has some of Chino's best vocal work in a while. He rediscovered his soft swooning voice that meshes so well with their heavy sound. Hopefully that continues moving forward.

 

Oh and for my money, Around the fur is a flawless record.

 

eh, why not?

Self-Titled
Around The Fur
White Pony
Ohms
Koi No Yokan
Saturday Night Wrist
Gore
Diamond Eyes
Adrenaline

this is probably where I am at right now, not having done a discog listen in a while and just going off my gut. my ranking has changed so many times over the years and I’m sure it’ll change again to some extent, but the general order is pretty consistent— top 2 are unwavering, 3-6 are the ones that are tough for me to nail down and constantly shift, and the bottom 3 are probably always gonna be my least favorites.

S/T to me is the Deftones, it is the perfect synthesis of all their influences and it is the band boiled down to their very essence. Around The Fur is very, very close behind for me still, it is an absolute slam fucking dunk of a record and sometimes I even reach for it over S/T even if ultimately that one will always be The One in my heart. the record just has so much passion in it, you can tell the band had a fire under their collective asses, and it improved on all the best aspects of the debut and pretty much laid out everything that would define the band’s music going forward.

when Ohms was newer I was pretty deadset on it being in my top 3, and I would probably still reach for it for a full album listen before WP, but it’s kinda tough for me to argue WP isn’t the better album with how many career-defining moments it has— I just played it to absolute death when I was younger and a newer fan of the band. KNY and SNW are pretty neck and neck for me. Gore is a weird record because I am still not sure entirely what to make of it most of the time, but I like that it’s weird and takes risks even tho the production is lackluster af and I don’t love Chino’s performance on a few tracks.

I became a fan just before DE came out, and I loved that record at the time and have fond memories attached to that time, but honestly as I’ve grown with the band it’s the album I just am least intrigued by… it feels like a very safe album to me in some ways, like an incredibly tight and competently-written one of course, but just find it lacks some of the qualities that make most of their other records so potent for me. there’s an almost sunny and exuberant energy to it that, while cool and I get why it would be the absolute shit for other fans, is just kinda not what I go to the band for. honestly, I probably find more of what I love about the band in Adrenaline at this point, and I do really end up appreciating that record more and more with time, but it’s hard for me to argue it is better than any record before it— it’s the sound of the band figuring it out and it is characteristically sloppy in many respects. it’s clearly their most amateurish record, but there’s a charm in that still, and when it hits it hits HARD. but some songs were certainly more cooked than others, and Chino sounds like he is 100% making it up on the fly for a lot of it (which, I mean, he was if all I have read about that record is correct ha). still a really solid first outing nonetheless.

 

Can't believe we're already coming up on 3 years since Ohms. I doubt we're getting anything for one or two more years but I wonder where they go from here creatively. Whoever plays bass on their next album(s) is going to have some big shoes to fill.

 

I just want Steph to stop adding strings. Stick to 7.

 

I just want him to stop saying dumb shit but that would be nice too

 

complicated feelings about Steph and Sergio's ousting aside

White Pony
Koi
Diamond Eyes
Ohms
S/T
Gore
ATF
Saturday
Adrenaline

which is to say this band has made so many good-to-great-to-classic records and the debut doesn't hold up as well as I thought

 

AtF still my fav

 

Have you listened to the Studio Collection version? In particular there is an additional repetition of the chorus in lhabia (Looks and feels great but look at what it's doing to you etc) that isn't in the original. Chino yells "look at how it feels" in such a cool way.

 

I have always personally considered this band to not be a complete album band, but instead a "singles" band. After reading the album rankings, I'm starting to feel way off base. Might be because the only album that's clicked for me completely was Ohms, which may be my favorite. I'd definitely consider myself more of a casual fan than most of you in here. Didn't really grow up with them. Started really listening to them post high-school after diamond eyes was already out.

All that aside, ya'll have really motivated me to give these guys a deeper dive. I have been playing along to some of my favorite tunes on guitar and taking a lot of inspiration from the writing lately. I just preordered the S/T record on their store. Trying to go after this sound a little bit after attempting to start up a band again and it's become very clear I need to dive deeper!

 

I'd highly recommend starting from the beginning so you can see their evolution over time. The jump from Adrenaline to ATF is just so huge, and then of course WP changed everything. You can hear traces of where they're going in each record (especially the early ones). Also, check the following B-sides to these albums, and don't skip their cover songs!

ATF: Crenshaw Punch
WP: The Boys Republic
S/T: Lovers