Review
There’s a hush before the devastation, and in Private Music, the Deftones use that stillness to drag you into the storm. Five years after Ohms, the Sacramento alt-metal legends return with their tenth studio record—a lean, razor-sharp statement that marries feral riffs with haunting atmospheres.
Opening with “my mind is a mountain”, the album wastes no time: it pummels, it whispers, it obsesses. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s signature teeth-grinding chugs mesh with Frank Delgado’s eerie synth textures, while Chino Moreno’s voice floats above the noise—sometimes ethereal, sometimes predator. Tracks like “locked club” and “cut hands” deliver the familiar Deftones aggression with fresh bite, while moments such as “i think about you all the time” and “souvenir” reveal a band still capable of cutting wide emotional arcs. Producer Nick Raskulinecz helps them balance devastation and dream-space with surgical precision.
If there’s a fault here, it’s the tension between clarity and chaos—at times the band’s razor-edge calibration risks losing the jagged unpredictability that made them feel so vital in earlier eras. But maybe that’s the point: Private Music doesn’t seek to startle—it seeks to endure. It’s Deftones fully aware of their shadow and light, daring you to meet them somewhere in between. - Dante
