In Sacramento, in the mid-90s, four kids raised on hardcore, metal and new wave laid down with Adrenaline the foundations of what would become one of the most singular bands of its generation. It is too easy to file this debut under « nu-metal »: it does have the codes, downtuned riffs, teenage rage, Terry Date’s rough production, but you can already hear something else.
That something else is Chino Moreno. His voice slides from whisper to scream without warning, injecting melancholy where the genre settled for anger. « Bored », « 7 Words » and « Engine No. 9 » hit hard, yet let a tension, a crack, surface that belongs to them alone.
The record does not yet have the atmospheric depth of the masterpieces to come. It is monolithic, sometimes repetitive, a prisoner of its era. But it brims with an energy and an honesty that command respect, and already closes the case: Deftones will never be a band like the others.
Verdict: 7. A raging, endearing first cast, the diamond still in its rough. Worth revisiting to measure how far they came.
