Album Review: private music by Deftones

More than three decades in, they're rock royalty who've done what most can only dream of - land on a sound good enough to sustain a career. And with early aughts revivalism all the rage, there hasn't been such a sweet time for nu metal since, well, the early aughts. Heavy, angsty guitar bands like Chat Pile are pulling from the same influences as the baggy jean brigade of the Woodstock '99 era, while the likes of South Arcade, Scowl, and Sasami are dropping their Ds and thumping away at their power chords.

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A love we chased and found. The success of Private Music likely won't come as a surprise to anyone. The tenth offering from Sacramento's alt-metal titans is so unapologetically Deftones that some fans may lament the lack of any adventurous experimentation that resulted in the likes of Saturday Night Wrist and Gore to stand out in their discography in spite of their divisive reception, oh and who could forget that spellbinding detour in "Entombed" off of 2012's ambitious Koi No Yokan? In this sense, Private Music is mostly comfort food of the highest order with a palpable sense of urgency to the material on offer that was mostly absent on their previous outing Ohms.

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On their first album in five years, Deftones continue a three-decade streak of producing some of the finest music of their genre. Accordingly, the Sacramento-founded alt metal outfit's long-awaited 10th studio album comes on heavy, refusing to let up for much of its duration. Indeed, it is a relief not only to hear new Deftones material, but to see that the group has managed to maintain its distinctly unique style, successfully bridging the divide between sleekly atmospheric alt and prog rock and good old-fashioned mind-melting metal.

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As ‘Adrenaline’, their 1995 debut, fast-approaches 30 this year, the Sacramento four-piece are still finding new corners of their sound to delve into and unpack. Having long-since shirked the trappings of nu metal – a label that never really sat comfortably with them in the first place – Deftones' tenth LP marks an end to the longest gap between albums since the group's inception and continues to signal a tireless pursuit of new sonic possibilities within the brash soundscapes that they so frequently inhabit. There’s an underlying sense, too, of the continued importance of Moreno's own various side projects – the most recent being last year’s electronic-leaning Crosses LP , 'Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.

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Marking both their tenth studio album and a cataclysmic 30 years since the release of scene-leading debut 'Adrenaline', 'Private Music' arrives as somewhat as a reinvigoration for Deftones, even for a band rarely not at the top of their game. Glastonbury cancellation aside, the lead up in the last few months has seen the outfit storm stages worldwide, building to the album's announcement at a triumphant Crystal Palace headline show and the reveal of opener 'my mind is a mountain'; a brisk near-three minute banger landing somewhere between the ferocity of their early material and the experimental melodies of their underrated 'Saturday Night Wrist'. Where 2020's 'Ohms' brought 'Adrenaline' producer Terry Date back into the fold, here they team up with Nick Raskulinecz - the man behind the expansive melody driven 'Diamond Eyes' and 'Koi No Yokan'.

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I was doomscrolling the other day and a post stuck with me. It sported an article clipped from a magazine. It read "baby born from embryo frozen in 1994, the oldest baby ever". Someone retweeted the article: "that baby could have been playing tony hawk pro skater 2 and listened to killswitch engage, now he'll play fortnite and listen to carti".

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