
1995-10-03
Adrenaline
Deftones
By Maeve C.
Deftones introduced their mix of clipped guitar rhythms and volatile vocals on Adrenaline. Stephen Carpenter's riffs and Abe Cunningham's drums give Chino Moreno room to move from close, uneasy singing into a scream, with the rhythm section holding the sudden changes together.
“Bored” opens with a repeated guitar figure that makes those shifts easy to hear. “7 Words” and “Engine No. 9” push the attack harder. The production keeps the instruments direct and crowded, capturing an early version of the tension between weight and atmosphere that the band would keep developing.