Deftones - private music
The tenth studio album from alt-metal titans Deftones reaffirms their formidable intensity three decades into their career.
In the 2020s, the band has found itself in the middle of an unlikely renaissance, thanks in no small part to Gen Z listeners who turned their classic tracks into viral TikTok fodder. Suddenly, people who had never brushed up against alternative metal were adding “Change (In the House of Flies)” and “My Summer (Shove It)” to their playlists.
But the truth is that Deftones never really disappeared: their fingerprints have always been audible, whether in the roar of early-2000s heavyweights or in the moody cadences of SoundCloud rap. The mark of a true artist is the ability to shape generations while remaining uncompromisingly themselves — and that’s exactly what Chino Moreno and his band accomplish on private music, released via Reprise.
On private music, Deftones sound as ferocious yet graceful as ever. They weave together crushing riffs and shimmering textures, leaving room for moments of sheer euphoria and transcendence. Take ~”metal dream”, tucked near the record’s back half: Moreno snarls through the verses with animalistic fury, only to lift listeners into orbit during the chorus — a collision of violence and intimacy that feels like the band’s essence distilled. This ability to marry the brutal with the delicate is what cemented their status as legends in the first place.
Sometimes the intimacy cuts even deeper. “I think about you all the time” may be one of the most lyrically sparse songs here, but its abrupt leap from hushed acoustic strums to a barrage of guitars and drums is both haunting and timeless. “Milk of the Madonna” burns with incandescent riffs, while Moreno delivers some of his most piercing, vulnerable vocals to date. The play of contrasts continues with “Souvenir”, which flirts with romance until it dissolves into guttural screams. Maintaining that equilibrium across a full-length record is no small feat, yet Deftones sustain it with unflinching confidence.
It’s hard to isolate highlights when nearly every track lands with such force. The opener, “my mind is a mountain”, sets a relentless standard, its momentum fueling the rest of the runtime. The closer, “departing the body”, stretches into a six-minute odyssey, glowing with the very qualities that made Deftones mythic decades ago.
If private music doesn’t radically reinvent the band, it doesn’t need to. It’s an album that is at once thunderous and intimate, familiar yet vital. For new listeners, it’s a potent initiation; for longtime devotees, it’s a rewarding return after five long years of silence.
8.1/10
