Artist: Deftones
Album: Around the Fur (1997)
Members: Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham, Chi Cheng
Tracks:
My Own Summer (shove it)
Lhabia
Mascara
Around the Fur
Ricketts
Be Quiet and Drive (far away)
Lotion
Dai th Flu
Headup
MX
Damone (hidden track)
Opening with one of the most recognisable two drum hits of the time, My Own Summer remains one of the best, albeit long forgotten, summer tracks of all time. There was nothing like feeding the CD into the car player on a roasting hot day and starting your journey with this. Followed shortly by that riff crawling all over the song you could be instantly reminded of the video: guys on the metal platforms in the ocean doing their thing while the pig in the tiara eventually gets mauled by the shark. Shit cool. Shit-fucking cool.
It’s been argued that it was around this time that brought out the ‘nu-metal’ craze which, thankfully, looks like it’s since died out. In an era which also produced the likes of Korn’s second album ‘Life is Peachy’, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit’s ‘Three Dollar Bill Y’all$’, Tool’s ‘Aenima and even Spineshank’s ‘Strictly Diesel’, Deftones were already starting to lead the way as far as hard rock was concerned. While their closest competitor, Korn, (style wise) have since reached tremendous commercial heights and then fallen by the way side, Deftones have, though arguably, certainly gone from strength to strength.
Although nu-metal brought rock into the mainstream, Around the Fur, should it be labelled such, remains slightly haunting in places, perhaps giving an insight into the direction the next album, White Pony, would take. Looking at lyrics from the likes of Mascara for example, the ‘is there still blood in your hair’, line or ‘I hate your tattoos, you have weak wrists, but I’ll keep you’, there is definitely a similar theme running through the much later songs like Feiticeria – such as the dark overload of the ‘soon I’ll let you go’ line, or Pink Maggit ‘s ‘all you are is meat’.
Dark maybe, but there definitely remains something strangely playful with the album. In contrast to the darker themes come intros like the energetic title-track, Around the Fur, followed by the meaty beats of Abe’s drum and Chi’s bass in Ricketts. ‘My Own Summer’ aside, ‘Be Quiet and Drive’ fits the car/cd player analogy just as well. Its driving riff surrounding the chorus of ‘I don’t care where, just far’…jesus, sorta wish more bands around would take notes, you know?
Although not a single, Headup remains another standout track from the album. While the simple distorted guitar builds over and over, the song bursts with Chino unleashing some sort of scream/rap (scramp?), allowing the then ex-Sepultura Max Cavelera to take vocals on the chorus, screaming ‘soulfly, fly high, soulfly fly free’. No surprise then that months later, when asked about the name of his new project, he claimed “It’s Soulfly”.
Positioned between the much more metal driven ‘Adrenalin’ and the cleaner, more accomplished White Pony, Around the Fur was, on retrospect, such an obvious next step for the band to take. The sound, the very feel of the album is something that appears in glimpses throughout other later albums, especially the self-titled one. Heavy as fuck, bit with a strangely groovy twist with the purity of Chino’s voice over the top. Surely this is what any band aims for, having their own sound; being able to tell who the band is, who the guitarist is from a few bar chords. Being the case, Around the Fur captures this perfectly. A definitive album of the era from a truly definitive band.
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