ADRENALINE - Comments on Guitar

"Adrenaline" marks the oficial birth of Deftones worldwidely. It is in part a compilation of the songs they had been composing and playing for several years as a garage band, and this makes it sound diferently from any following album, exactly because of that garage/street element in the composition style. However we shall not forget that at "Adrenaline" Deftone's were not from far a begginer band! When "Adrenaline" came out, they had been together for several years, and were all already quite experienced instrumentalists. This means though "Adrenaline" has garage-sound elements, it also has the waves and tones of an experienced band on the other hand. 

Stef's tunning is standart, which basically means "buy your guitar and start playing around". And this is quite how he played on most garage songs (songs such as "Engine no.9" or "7 words"), that lately turned up to become part of "Adrenaline". The combination of some fast & furious riffs was perfect to blow out the crowd on any local concert. Add to that, the use of standart tunning instead of dropped tunning, which would make these songs terribly easier to play, make of "Adrenaline" the hardest Deftones album to play on guitars, requiring some pratice with fastly swipping between power-chords.

The tunning being standart, it also means this album presents the sharpest guitarlines of the band. The distortion also tends to be sharper, with more drive & less fuzz distortion then the other albums. This completes the typical sound of a street-band guitar, on most tracks in "Adrenaline", such as "Engine no.9", "Root" or "7 words". However, "Adrenaline" also presents deeply the marks of what Deftones would sound like in the albums to come: more emotional & wavy. The fast & rapping vocals are a large presence, but the slow & emotive moments are also present, either on tracks like "Bored", "Fireal" or "Fist" or in breakdowns & mellow riffs in tracks like "Nosebleed" or "Root".

Most riffs are based on 2-string chords, basically the known power-chords, and rarely Stef uses 3-string chords on riffs. These quite a typical aspect of "Adrenaline", as in the album evolution Stef gradually started using more and more strings on the chords. The wide use of power chords gives the song a haste and speed typical of this album, and in the same time marks a somewhat hardcore influence on Stef's guitars. However, we must also notice some songs do have wider chords, using all the strings. Stef's prefer to use those chords on parts with few/no distortion, mainly breakdowns/interludes, to let the guitar ring longly. This happens per example on the interlude of "Birthmark" or "Root", or verse of "Fist".

An interesting aspect of "Adrenaline" are the parts that contradict the rage & haste of the rest of the album. Songs like "Fist" or "Fireal" are particularly good examples: they are songs instrumentally calm, where the band seems to gain heaviness exactly for the notes they dont play, while the whole heaviness is given by Chino's emotions on the vocals. Other examples of this are the interlude of "Nosebleed" or "Birthmark".
Another good use of Stef are the unhurried instrumental, on riffs such as the chorus of "Bored" or verse of "7 Words". These parts add contrast to the hurried & explosive riffs, emphasizing their energy, at the same time as reach a special kind of heaviness. These riffs also are interesting as they predict how Stef's guitars would evolve on the following albums.

Picking-built riffs are especially frequent use in "Adrenaline", contrasting all the other albums notably. Examples are the intro of "Root", verse of "Minus Blindfold" or "Fireal", bridge of "Minus Blindfold". On the following albums that kinda riff has lost space as Stef has grown preference for chords, that allow him to be more heavy (but this doesnt mean it disappeared, all albums still present at least 1-2 riffs like that).

On "Adrenaline" presents Chi mostly follows Stef, and only rarely he would run out of the guitar line to make an independent bass line. However, it is on this album that we find the most notable example of those independent bass lines that later became the mark of Chi: 7 Words. On this song Chi drives his bass absolutely independently from Stef, and surprises any listenner to keep that line on the chorus, when it would be clichê to have a follow-up bass line. Abe's drums are quite unique on "Adrenaline", he uses wildly his drums sticks on ghost notes & unnoticed crashes. On the following albums he held himself from that kind of playing, as he says that most of the time nowadays he gives more heaviness by not playing a note then by playing it. Anyway on "Adrenaline" he beats on the drums wildly & rageously, which is particularly fitting for Stef's fast & furious riffs for this album.

Stef's hasting riffs are also directly proportional to Chino's rage on the mic, and once again Stef proved how no matter how different him and Chino might be personally, in music they have a very special equilibrium & interaction. "Adrenaline" is quite direct & political on its lyrics, which could be seen as a typically garage-band element. This creates also a special coherence between Stef's straight-to-the-point and ghostnotes-less guitars and Chino's straight & aggressive lyrics.

In the afterall, "Adrenaline" has a quite evolved & experienced sound for a debut album (on mainstreamming). While it still keeps elements of garage music, it also predicts on several little points what Deftones would turn to sound like later. In other words, "Adrenaline" was an album that could turn the crowd crazy on concerts, but at the same time created a huge expectation over the band for the following album. On "Around the Fur" there was a huge pressure to see if the band would keep "as heavy as the first album", and many were decieved that it wasnt all the tracks that had the same haste & rage as in "Adrenaline" (what to say about "White Poney"...).
On "Adrenaline", Stef built heavy and easy-rythm guitar lines that'd easily drive the crowd insane, and gave the whole rythm a lot of agility and rage, perfectly fitting to the whole band's mood.

The afterall: rageous and heavy guitar lines perfect to shake any concert, combined with wide & emotive riffs to emotion breakdowns.

The track that most carries the mark of the previous experiences: Engine no.9
The track that better forsees the following album: Bored

- by Ralph Vanstreels (kain175@hotmail.com)