It’s certainly not the only time he flirts with death. Lead single “Change (In the House of Flies)” speaks to the mania those corporeal pleasures can elicit-its menacing plod gives way to an explosive chorus, then a sinister request: “Give you the gun, blow me away,” Moreno chokes out at the bridge. But the rest of the album teases and torments within far more debaucherous environs, starting with the title itself, White Pony, a symbol of sex and a certain powdered stimulant. Punctuated with adolescent angst, frontman Chino Moreno’s overblown raps bounce off the metallic squall as if ricocheting through locker-strewn hallways. Opener “Back to School (Mini Maggit)”-a tidier rewriting of final track “Pink Maggit”-documents that takeover in radio-friendly format. By 2000’s White Pony, they had effectively seized that scene, drowning its rage and recklessness in a moody, muddy stew of experimental metal, shoegaze, post-hardcore, and ambient noise. Sacramento’s Deftones spent most of the ‘90s feverishly navigating the fringes of alt-metal.

Deftones albums white pony