
Like many listeners, I had never really given the band’s debut its proper due. In honor of their latest album Gore releasing this past Friday, I’m ranking all eight of their studio albums, and examining their stunning sonic evolution. But it is the band’s fearless creative spirit and refusal to give in to stagnancy that has kept them as one of metal’s greatest contemporary acts, across eight albums and more than twenty years. From their very first album, the band already displayed a knack for atmosphere and nuance unmatched by their contemporaries.

Of all the major acts of the original nu metal wave of the ’90s, none have been able to match the remarkable sonic growth and startling consistency of Sacramento’s Deftones.
