The Deftones sound can be described as heavy. It's a heaviness, however, which is attributable to the bruising weight of emotion and atmosphere in the music, as much as to the effect of guitars and drums. The influence of The Cure and The Smiths is obvious: there is a real and pressing darkness to their music, absent in goth metal peers, such as Korn and Marilyn Manson.

On White Pony, Chino Moreno's brooding fantasies about electrocution, torture and knives convey a compelling romanticism, which comes from the vital sense of longing and desperation behind the morbidity. On 'RX Queen', for example, ridiculously gothic verses about stealing carcasses are juxtaposed with the upliftingly poppy chorus of "Cause you're my girl and that's all right."

'Knife Party' echoes Nirvana's 'Pennyroyal Tea', despite its very different subject matter: "I'm the new king... in here we are all anaemic."

The most affecting song of all is the quiet, shivery ballad 'Teenager', with its trip-hop loops and simple heart-stung melancholia. It's a textured sound, the guitar figures forming either elongated drones or booming thunderclouds, while the vocals bleed and dissolve into the music, lush and whispery one minute, cracked and intense the next.

There is a sensitivity to Deftones music that marks it out. White Pony will run and run.