In the middle of the Golden State, about halfway between San Francisco and Reno, Nevada, lies Sacramento, California's capitol and current bastion of Pete Wilson's republican rule. As irony would have it, it is also home to a thriving music scene, And Sacramento's hard-hitting Deftones play a major role. The four members of Deftones, who have enjoyed a tight camaraderie since childhood and have breathed sonic fire into otherwise quiet suburban streets for the past four years, agree that few in the outside world know about it. "Sacramento's a killer music scene," says guitarist Stephan Carpenter, "but it's just not a great club scene. There's like one good club [the Cattle Club] and a couple of other places, but people really don't go out here much."

But the lack of a proper local outlet for the group to unleash their unique brand of musical fury hasn't stopped them. Instead, they hit the road and began building a following in the Bay Area, Reno and L.A., touring with everyone from Bad Brains and Korn to L7 and Quciksand. After four years of persistent gigging and juggling their day jobs, they worked their way from a demo-to-demo existence to a record deal with Maverick.

"When you're a new band, it's hard to convince clubs in different cities to let you play and pay you--it's not like bands can just travel anywhere at the drop of a hat," says Carpenter, "I mean, nobody minds playing for free half the time, but when it comes to travelling you still have to pay for costs. So it adds up."

In Deftones' case, it has definitely paid off. The band's Maverick debut Adrenaline, which features such songs as "Nosebleed," "Lifter" and the musical "7 words," bristles with determination, frustration and passion.

Producer Terry Date (White Zombie, Soundgarden, Pantera) captures the dynamics of the band in the studio without quelling the raw energy behind it, recording much of it live. The 11 tracks are tinged with a variety of subtle stylistic shadings that keep the music fresh. Though he can screech and howl as viscerally as his most anxiety-ridden contemporaries, enigmatic frontman Chino Moreno's vocals also have a melodic flair, notably on "Root" and the suprise 11th track "Fist" (taken from one of the band's earlier demos). That same melodic sensibility often creeps into Carpenter's abrasive guitar for interludes of harsh tunefulness.

"I think that one of the best things we have going for us is our dynamics," Moreno says. "There's never too much of anything. It's not like there's a real heavy song and then a real soft song. Each of our songs contain many different levels." just as the band refuses to be pigeonholed sonically, they also remain abstract lyrically , preferring to express themselves more in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. Like many of their influences, (the band cites a wide variety ranging from Jane's Addiction to Bad Brains to Smashing Pumpkins) the band never stops long enough to be pinned down, which definitely keeps things interesting.

Like their album suggests, the music of Deftones is nothing short of a complete aural rush. better check your pulse.