Album Anniversaries: 25 Years After 'Around the Fur,' Alt-Metal Has Never Been the Same
A seamless mix of ferocity and intimacy, Around the Fur marked a shift towards musical maturity not just for Deftones, but for alternative music decades later.
In Album Anniversaries, writers honor their favorite aging albums and their subsequent legacies, revealing which projects have stood the test of time.
Written by Victoria Canales
Photo courtesy of Mark Leialoha
The late ‘90s were filled — some might say plagued — with hard rock and metal bands trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Only a few years after the peak of grunge, bands like Godsmack and Limp Bizkit received radio play yet could not win over as many hearts as their predecessors. Then, on October 28, 1997, alternative metal band Deftones released Around the Fur.
Deftones met in their teenage years when vocalist Chino Moreno, guitarist Stephen Carpenter, and drummer Abe Cunningham all attended the same high school in Sacramento and began jamming together around 1988. The next few years had a few personnel changes, but the lineup stabilized in 1993 when Cunningham returned from a hiatus and Chi Cheng became the official bassist. The band traveled to Seattle to quickly piece together their first album, 1995’s Adrenaline. It did not reach commercial success initially, but Adrenaline was lauded by both critics and fans for its emotional and musical range, a visionary combination of Pantera-esque heaviness and Nirvana’s agonizing vulnerability. Because the album was not easily boxed into any particular subgenre of metal, Deftones were lumped together with bands like Korn and Slipknot under the term “nu metal.” Nu metal came out of the early 1990s and was characterized by its inclusion of elements from other genres, like rap and alt-rock, into metal music. While many listeners today no longer consider Deftones a typical nu metal band, the label was pivotal to introducing the band to a wider audience.
After two years of promoting Adrenaline through extensive touring, Deftones was ready to record a new album. They didn’t have specific intentions going into the process nor did they have a clear direction they wanted to take with the album, but with the help of producer Terry Date, who produced Adrenaline as well as albums like Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger and Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power, the band quickly found inspiration. Surprisingly, Moreno’s musical taste leaned closer to shoegaze and new wave bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode than the thrash metal that laid the foundation for Carpenter’s guitar work, but both ends of the musical spectrum were influential to the creation of Around the Fur.
Image courtesy of Maverick Records
The band was not only eclectic in their varying musical tastes, but also in their experiments with sound during the recording process. For example, Cunningham used a different snare drum for nearly every song on the album, and Cheng’s basslines often did not follow what the guitars were playing. After the closer “MX,” there is a hidden track titled “Bong Hit” solely comprised of the audio of Carpenter smoking out of a bong. When it comes to the soft-loud dynamics of his vocals, Moreno has explained that his emotional state was all over the place while recording. “I was probably angrier than I’ve ever been in my life, but I was probably happier than I ever was in my life,” Moreno admitted in a mini-documentary by Revolver. “Some of the angry parts of that record — I don’t know if I can ever be that angry again.”
And the anger is palpable. Explosive, desperate, and unrelenting all at once, Around the Fur was met with overwhelming praise from critics and carved out a place for Deftones among metal greats. A pounding guitar riff drives along album opener “My Own Summer (Shove It).” Carpenter's performance of rising and falling in intensity couples with Moreno’s alternating whispers and gut-wrenching screams. At times, the bass is overwhelming. Other times, it’s not there at all. Cheng manipulates the sound of silence and pulls off this balancing act with stunning precision. Meanwhile, Cunningham amplifies the rage of the track and keeps the band moving as a cohesive unit.
Showcasing a more sensitive side of the band, the main riff in “Mascara” sounds far away. Guitar drips in reverb while Moreno’s vocals, barely stronger than a breath, conjure up almost unbearable pain. The volume change in the chorus is jarring but too short for the listener to get comfortable with. Wholly, the song’s musical landscape is too unpredictable to navigate.
“Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is regarded by many to be the band’s masterpiece. Equally vicious and delicate, Moreno’s love of shoegaze is best showcased with this song’s grimy guitar and underlying fuzz. During the verses, the vocals are mixed as if they were an instrument, making the choruses even more dynamic. The pendulum endlessly swings between shrieking and crooning until the track fades out; the ending is as elusive as the moment between sleeping and waking.
The album title and cover are just as iconic as the music itself. Though many have interpreted the title to be some sort of sexual reference, Moreno has stated that it is actually a juxtaposition between fur and flesh; the comforting and the uncanny. The lyrics of the title track speak about a warm and plush fur coat, hides something dead inside, referring to the empty vanity of those in the music industry. However, the album cover has a less intentional story. The iconic image of a barely-dressed woman photographed from a disorienting angle was taken at a house party in Seattle while the band was recording. While the album is instantly recognizable due to this cover, in recent years Moreno has expressed regret over the “horrible” artwork.
Twenty five years after its release, Around the Fur has become a modern classic and is widely regarded as a turning point in the evolution of alternative metal. Bands like Nothing and Deafheaven have continued the blend of shoegaze and metal that Around the Fur championed, and bands from CHVRCHES to Suicide Silence have acknowledged the debt they owe to Deftones. The band’s follow-up album, White Pony, became their biggest commercial and critical success, and Deftones are one of the most widely respected bands still recording and touring today. In honor of its anniversary, give the album a listen. Let the anger move you.