“We’ve been waiting here patiently locked in this state, clocking our time,” barks Deftones frontman Chino Moreno on ‘Private Music’s monolithic opener and lead single ‘My Mind Is A Mountain’. You said it, Chino. It’s been a long five year wait since 2020’s pummelling and emotional ‘Ohms’. In that time, the band have parted ways with bassist Sergio Vega, dallied with side-projects in the form of Moreno’s industrial synth outfit Crosses, and played some of the biggest shows of their career after unexpectedly becoming something of a viral TikTok sensation. That last one may raise an eyebrow, but it makes perfect sense.
Rather than just hang off the legacy of the immaculate classics ‘Around The Fur’ and ‘White Pony’, the Sacramento art-metallers have spent the 21st Century boshing out banger after banger as arguably the most reliable band in rock. But that’s not enough to get the kids on board with dudes in their fifties. There’s something in the genre-fluid way it all hangs together with Deftones – Moreno’s soulful and (dare-we-say-it?) often sexy croon, the vividly profound lyrics, the flashes of hip-hop and trip-hop rhythms, perversely danceable drums, and the world-building density of the riffs. Metal is only a colour on the palette, and never the whole picture; ideal for these tribeless times as well as fortifying the band to go the distance.
This 10th album ‘Private Music’ is a reunion with Nick Raskulinecz – the producer behind their reinvigorating mid-career highs of 2010’s ‘Diamond Eyes’ and 2012’s ‘Koi No Yokan’. Cutting to the core of Deftones, it feels like they really picked up where they left off. ‘Locked Club’ has that ‘Swerve City’ and ‘Goon Squad’ “LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO” swagger as Moreno coolly sets the tone: “Cruise out in style, well it’s safe, come stepping out proud from the gates”. ‘Ecdysis’ smashes a touch of Depeche Mode ‘Violator’ synthy macabre with some Deftones doom visions of our end met by “rivers rising, swollen streams dividing”, before the chugging Sleigh Bells riffery of ‘Infinite Source’ and sky-reaching mini epic of ‘Souvenir’ find a centre until the feral ‘cXz’ rips a hole in time with a circle pit.
And for fans of the viral ‘Sextape’, yes, ‘Private Music’ is complete with one of those gorgeous Deftones love songs in the form of ‘I Think About You All The Time’. It feels almost like a sequel to the ‘Diamond Eyes’ gem, as guitarist Stephen Carpenter weaves a fragile web for Moreno’s gothic and Robert Smith-esque romantic invitation: “As we sink inside of your warship, lay next to me, our theme plays and we’re out of our minds…” Phwoar.
From the brilliantly Deftones-as-fuck ‘Milk Of The Madonna’, the possessed machine-gun delivery of ‘Cut Hands’ and ‘Metal Dream’ to the cinematic and escapist closer of ‘Departing The Body’, ‘Private Music’ once again finds the band as masters of beauty and brutality rolling over the horizon in one stunning but powerful storm. Batten down those hatches, throw up those horns, and lean in close. Very much a whole journey through a full-bodied and expansive fever dream, but this time somehow spiritual, intimate and direct, Deftones’ 10th album is a gift for fans old, new, and certainly finding them in the very distant future. Their peers can’t touch them.
