Deftones is a band of balance. Their sound is a maelstrom of beauty and throttling violence, a tug of war between lead guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s metal compulsions and lead vocalist Chino Moreno’s passionate pop vocals and electronic atmospheres.
For longtime fans, the nu-metal outfit was just a group of Sacramento skater kids with frosted tips who grew up and decided to make the freakiest art possible and shatter mainstream expectations in the year 2000 with the seminal and strange “White Pony.”
Twenty-five years on, the group has slowly but surely embodied a completely ubiquitous sound through adventurous records like the dreamy, pop-inflected “Saturday Night Wrist” in 2006 and barraging, masculine metal releases like 2012’s “Koi No Yokan.” For new Gen Z fans, the band is an easily accessible bat signal, art-metal for isolated creatives who never leave their room and fixate on Lana Del Rey and Tumblr. Metallica could never.
“Private music,” the band’s 10th studio album, arrives at an opportune time. It is their first release since 2020, an interim of five years that has brought forth the mainstream saturation of Tik Tok and online “alt” culture. The revived interest in the band from Gen Z audiences have brought the group a level of validation and idolatry that is only topped by their initial 90’s and 2000’s hype.
Rather than challenge expectations and deviate from their trademark style, “Private music” sees Chino and co. doubling down, reaping the benefits from their long history and making a no-holds-barred album that seeks to explode at every possible opportunity.
On lead singles “my mind is a mountain” and “milk of the madonna,” Deftones return to full, unfettered alternative metal. Upon a closer headphone listen, though, these metal headbangers become cocoons of sound, swirling with digitized atmospheres and the vaporous remains of heavenly synthesizers that linger tantalizingly at the edge of the mix. These flourishes come courtesy of producer and DJ Nick Raskulinecz, who worked on the mixes for the band’s cinematic 2010’s releases.
“Cut hands” and “~metal dream” on the back half of the record see the band attempting to revive the rap-rock approach of early 2000’s nu-metal, with Chino genuinely rapping and sounding good at it for the first time since 1997’s “Around the Fur.”
While Moreno’s postmodern lyrics have always included heavy nods to psychedelics, violence and sex, this album’s messaging is decidedly more sensual and heady than ever before. “And you feel it, feel it drain through your body / I can feel it, can you feel it? / Collapse in your room, preparing your strength / The power you feel from the contact,” Moreno belts on the chorus of “locked club.” You make it to the end of these tracks more relieved you made it out alive, rather than inspired or lifted.
On “ecdysis,” Moreno continues this apocalyptic, mentally-unhinged theme, singing “Inside these winds / Constant rivers rising, swollen streams dividing / Watch it cut its way through the valleys while devouring it entirely again.” One wonders if he is singing about a catastrophic event or a clandestine meeting between two lovers.
While these tracks achieve milestones unheard of for a rock band this old, the band’s age and millennial-anthem tendencies show at some points of the record, namely with the songs “infinite source” and “souvenir.” However, the sharp hooks on these songs make up for their lack in progression, and casual audiences both young and old will likely enjoy these moments just as much as the rest of the project.
Like them or not, “Private music” is an unsurprising success from this cross-generational band. Nu-metal wash-ups better take notes from Deftones on how to age with style and teeth.
