Deftones album White Pony came out when I was going into my Sophmore year of high school back in 2000 and little did I know at the time it would be one of my favorite albums ever!  What is even crazier is that I bought the debut 3 Doors Down album on it just for the song “Superman” and I actually thought the album was better then White Pony. Yikes! pretty embarassing story to tell but the album over the years I have always gone back to and enjoyed it more and more because every song is fucking sick if you really go front to back on the album and I’ll tell you why.

The album starts off with a decent song in “Feiticeira” but it’s not as great as it’s follow up the awesome and ambient ” Digital Bath” which displayed a departure of the band’s normal nu-metal sound, which was on the verge of sinking.  Most people at the time criticized them for changing direction but luckily they had abandoned ship at the right time because all the big bands such as Korn, Limp Bizkit and ugghhh Kid Rock at the time started to fizzle out a few years later with their terrible follow ups.

The next few songs were a mix of old Deftones and their new style they were going for with heavy hitters like “Elite” (which one them a grammy for best metal performance) and Street Carp which satisfied their hardcore base.  Their newer ambient and experimental sound came in songs like “Teenager” and “Passenger”, one of my favorite songs by Deftones which include guest vocals from Maynard James Keenan of Tool.  The songs were very creepy and also very psychedelic which was nothing any of their colleagues were attempting to do at the time.

Last but not least the breakthrough of the album and possibly one of the best songs the band has ever put together, the song “Change (In The House of Flies) is the perfect description of a Deftones song.  The song is creepy, psycedelic, heavy, proggy and original to say the least.  It also was a perfect direction example of where the band wanted to head to stray from the pack and it obviously worked because the band is still putting out great albums today.  They have a front man who can put his vocals from harsh to the cleanest softest vocals out there.  Their sound is only compared to them because they are doing their own thing and still making great music and when their new album comes out entitled Eros I am almost certain it will blow minds.  If you have never listened to this whole album and you do like a lot of Deftones songs, I would suggest giving this album a front to back listen to get the full effect and I assure you it will be your favorite album by them.

Key Tracks:

Digital Bath

Elite

Street Carp

Passenger

Change(In The House of Flies)