10 Definitive Rock Albums Of The 2000s

Most metal is meant to basically pummel over you from the moment that you here it. Even though moshing might be a form of release for every metalhead known to man, you're not going into a record by someone like Slipknot or Slayer and expecting to hear something soothing by any stretch. There was a healthy middle ground between the heavy and light sides of the genre, and White Pony was one of the first times that metal met the world of ambience.

Taking as much as inspiration from bands like the Cure and My Bloody Valentine as they did from Black Sabbath and Metallica, Deftones hit upon something a lot more calming on this record, alternating between songs that had their teeth out like Elite before transitioning into songs that had a more delicate framework behind them like Digital Bath or Change. Having an album of just those styles would be really disjointed though, and the best moments on the record are where they're able to blend styles together, like the strung out sounds of RX Queen or building up a song like Digital Bath into a horrifying experience once the soundscapes drop out.

Granted, this kind of metal wasn't necessarily in line with the nu metal crowd, not selling nearly as much as the Limp Bizkits of the world and leading to Deftones being focused more underground than some of the giants of the genre. They may have left some of their audience behind, but it was a fair trade for pushing the genre forward like this.