The week beforehand I'd rushed into town to buy the Minerva single (on cd and 7") and did the same the following week for the album. I had some free periods on Mondays, so took the bus back home, played the album very loudly and returned to college after lunch. They were an important band to me and still are now, which is one of the things I love them for the most.
Deftones is a brilliantly heavy record - I still remember being pummelled by it on that first listen. In hindsight, I love that it wasn't like White Pony even if at the the time I kinda wished it was. The singles Hexagram and Minerva are both huge. Minerva had been plastered across MTV that early-summer and walks a thin line being being a fairly poppy single but also having Stephen Carpenter's guitar beating you down. It's stood the test of time remarkably well. When Girls Telephone Boys is a highlight too - it has obvious parallels to Elite but is more listenable - and Bloody Cape could easily have been a single with that chorus. Lucky You should have come as more as a surprise as a odd-ball song on that first listen, but I'd been reading the sleeve notes and could tell it was going to be more experimental by the additional writing credit to DJ Crook. I've since learnt my lesson to not read the details in advance lest I spoil the surprise. Overall, it lacks the epics that they'd begun writing on White Pony, but is an album of huge songs, which is all anyone really wants.
Recently, their back-catalogue has become quite readily available on vinyl, so it seems rude to not have the other LPs sit alongside White Pony in my collection. However, I've been fairly rubbish at actually buying them - the fact that they're always in record shops takes away the fun a bit and there's usually more urgent purchases to make. However, I have bought a few and will round out the collection in due time.
Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Fopp Oxford
When: 07/07/17
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
