“It’s something I say in one of the songs – ‘The separation starts here’”: How ‘the Radiohead of metal’ broke free from nu metal to blaze their own unique trail

Deftones posing for a photograph in 1997.

Deftones have long been dubbed the ‘Metal Radiohead’, thanks in a large part to their 2000 album White Pony - a record that expanded the boundaries of metal at the turn of the millennium in the same way as the British band’s own third album, OK Computer, had three years earlier.

If White Pony really was Chino Moreno and co’s OK Computer, then it stands to reason that its predecessor, 1997’s Around The Fur was their The Bends. It may not have torn up the rulebook in the way as its successor, but it set them on the path which they follow to this day.