How do you follow a masterpiece? By refusing to remake it. The self-titled 2003 album is Deftones’ darkest, most abrasive record, a massive and tormented object recorded in pain, amid internal tension and perfectionism. You feel a band digging rather than seducing.
« Hexagram » opens on one of the heaviest riffs of their career; « Minerva » offers a celestial chorus worthy of White Pony; « Bloody Cape » and « When Girls Telephone Boys » alternate caress and bite. The record is more compact, more frontal, less immediately seductive than its predecessor, and that is precisely what long hurt its reputation.
Time has done it justice. Beneath its rough surface, the album teems with invention, and its darkness makes it a piece apart, essential to anyone wanting to understand the band. It is not their most accessible record; it may be one of their deepest.
Verdict: 8. An album misunderstood on release, whose density rewards the patient listener. Due an urgent reappraisal.
