Deftones
– White Pony
By the time White Pony dropped, Deftones had already distanced themselves from the nü-metal mall crowd, but this was the album where they burned the bridge, flipped the ashtray, and let the night drive. It’s the sound of a band hellbent on escaping their own scene, leaning hard into mood, atmosphere, and tension. It’s sexy, violent, and strangely serene—often all in the same track.
Best of…
Chino Moreno doesn’t just sing—he exhales, snarls, whispers, pleads. The lyrics feel like fragments from a half-remembered dream, or maybe a nightmare you didn’t want to wake from. Meanwhile, Stephen Carpenter’s guitar tone doesn’t chug so much as hover, thick and low, like fog that hums. Frank Delgado’s turntables aren’t flashy; they’re ghostly, smearing texture across the songs like Vaseline on a lens. And Abe Cunningham’s drums? Absolute gut punches—sharp, smart, but loose enough to swing.
This album has no patience for genre labels. It’s shoegaze with a switchblade. Trip-hop with bruises. Metal that grew up, got weirder, and refused to yell just to be heard. White Pony doesn’t try to blow your head off. It’d rather crawl under your skin and haunt the place.
Choice Tracks
Digital Bath
This is what drowning in honey feels like. Fragile, erotic, and eerie, Chino’s vocals glide over glitchy loops and dripping-wet guitars. Seduction turned to static.
Change (In the House of Flies)
The slowest, most deliberate gut-wrench on the record. Every whisper feels like a threat, every chord change like a trap door. It doesn’t rise—it coils.
Passenger
Maynard James Keenan drops in like a ghost driver in Chino’s fever dream joyride. The duet works because it’s less a trade-off than a ritual. The climax is less explosive and more inevitable.
Knife Prty
Creepy, beautiful, and deranged. The whispered build, the swirling electronics, the near-operatic female vocals in the bridge—it’s a prom night hallucination gone right off the rails.
Elite
The one time they let the teeth out. Distorted to hell, screamed to oblivion, and crunching like a machine having a seizure. It’s the sound of nerves fried on contact.
White Pony doesn’t scream for attention. It seduces you into a stupor, holds your head underwater, and leaves you wondering why you liked it so much.