SOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-Around the Fur (1997).
On this album, the band sounds older than they did on Adrenaline. And they are, obviously, but it sounds like they grew up a bit–maybe that’s Chino Moreno’s voice. I kind of thought that I loved this album. Turns out I like it a lot, but that I love their next album more. This album is a marked improvement over the first one, but doesn’t quite get to the experimental nature of their later music.
Having said that, “My Own Summer (Shove It)” is the quintessential early Deftones song. The verses are creepy whispered (nobody whispers like Chino) with a really neat and unexpected slinky bass. And then the chorus is huge–big loud guitars screams and shouts of Shove It. The post-chorus keeps that whispery style of vocal but with the heavy guitars. It’s dramatic and really unsubtle and nobody does it like they do. It’s hard to follow that song but “Lhabia” does an admirable job. “Lhabia” also features Chino’s quite singing. I love that he stretches out his words over fast chugging guitar, seemingly contradicting their sound. “Mascara” slows things down, making for a very creepy song. There’s no real bridge or even chorus but when the song slows down and he quietly sings “it’s too bad. it’s too bad. you’re married. to me.” It’s packs a punch. “Around the Fur” brings in some real heaviness including some rage-filled screams at the end.
“Rickets” has some of that oddball guitar signature that bands like Korn would also play (Korn and Deftones are sort of the founding fathers of this genre of metal so they are allowed some similarities. “Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) is the most melodic thing the band has done yet. Big full guitars and an upbeat bridge–it introduces some alt rock elements and a hint of shoegazer guitar. It’s followed by loud guitars and real guttural screams. I really like the ope tuning of the guitars that sound almost metallic “Dai the Flu” opens with a great full bass sound. “Headup” features a duet with Max Calavera of Sepultura. The song has Calavera singing the word “Soulfly” which is the name of the band that he formed around the same time. I wonder which came first. The final song “MX” features a female voice questioning Chino during the chorus (and some really crazy sounds). There’s something strangely sexy about the whole song even if the crazy sounds have it veer towards the creepy. “MX” is listed as 35 or so minutes but it’s really only 4 minutes. There’s two bonus things stuck in the dead air space. A goofy thing called “bong hit” at around 19 minutes (which is indeed, a bong hit) and a hidden track at 32 minutes called “Damone.” “Damone” is a fast song that never really lets up.
In hindsight it’s easy to see that the band were heading towards something amazing but hadn’t gotten there yet. But at the time, this was pretty revolutionary on its own.
[READ: February 25, 2013] “#37 Guy Bleeding All Over Skype”
According to Harper’s this is an excerpt from “More Little Tales of the Internet” that was published in Conjunctions. I’m curious to know more about the whole thing, but figured I’d write this before investigating further. So, are there #37 of these little snippets? Are there lots more? Are there just a few random numbers? I wonder.
This story is told from the point of view of a man at a business meeting. The “guy” of the title is a big man, calling into the business meeting via Skype. He seems to be big in terms of the company, but he also big in that he has positioned his head to be very large (mostly forehead and crown) on the screen. The guy seems oblivious to this as he talks about the important stuff he needs to discuss (of which we learn nothing).
The narrator muses that he assumes everyone noticed things exactly when he did but nobody compared notes or anything. Unless, he says, you thought it was some kind of technological glitch on screen, then you had to notice what happened. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 