DEFTONES Gore CD (2016)

By 2016, Deftones had long since outgrown every genre tag anyone tried to pin on them. Gore arrived as their eighth album and doubled down on that refusal, all shimmering dissonance and Chino's voice doing things that shouldn't be possible over Steph Carpenter's wall-of-sound guitar work.

This is the record that gave us Prayers/Triangles and Doomed User, the one that proved the Sacramento five-piece remained genuinely untouchable in the space between dream pop and heavy music. If you think nu-metal is a useful description here, you haven't listened closely enough. Gore sits comfortably alongside anything in the dark alternative or post-metal canon, the kind of album that rewards headphones and a dark room.

CD, full length, 2016. Released via Reprise/Warner. Country of origin: USA.

Fans of: A Perfect Circle, Tool, Failure, Portishead, Appleseed Cast.