Whatever people tell you, a Deftones record in 2025 isn’t a nostalgic proposition. Despite nu metal experiencing an unlikely renaissance, it’s debatable as to whether the Sacramento giants were ever part of the major label construct engineered as one last hurrah for ‘alternative music’ to ‘shift units’ on either side of the millennium.
The Deftones story runs far deeper than any of these manufactured tropes. Even as the Korn revival sees those in the sludge rock pantheon peeking through the cracks of their past as the present assuages their adolescence, Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Frank Delgado and Abe Cunningham have been fighting the good fight since the days of Adrenaline.
While many of the band’s earliest disciples may now have set tastes due to the hamster wheel of family, mortgages and all the rest of it, the five-piece (which now includes bassist, Fred Sablan who replaces Sergio Vega) have never been ones to look in the rearview mirror; a new generation of listeners equally as fervent as those older heads who still harbour the same feelings as the first time they listened to Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away). No matter which generation you’re from, it’s Deftones’ ability to freeze time that is their most potent weapon, making them the safest bet of all.
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Private Music doesn’t change that. It isn’t a return to form, simply because Deftones never lost it. It’s a release that sees a band maintaining an artistic relevance that apes their alt-rock and nu metal adversaries, even if 2020’s Ohms failed to capture the same energy of its predecessor Gore, which still stands as one of the best Deftones records post-White Pony.
Whether Private Music breaks into the same upper reaches of the Deftones canon will be judged with time, but comparing it to Ohms, and these songs are far more vibrant. The slow crush of opening gambit, My Mind Is a Mountain, sees Carpenter and Cunningham combining for fizzy breeze blocks that Moreno navigates around with his trademark vocals that oscillate between terror and tenderness.
Deftones - Private MusicOn Locked Club, Deftones dispense a blissed-out mash-up that blurs the lines between generations. It could have been written yesterday as much as it could have been written 25 years ago, and as Moreno melodically purrs, “I can feel / Can you feel it,” it illuminates the band’s universal dominance. Then there’s Infinite Source, which reaffirms the melodic majesty and crushing choruses that are prime Deftones. It’s the best song band has written in years, with sound waves that make you shiver with divine pleasure.
The dirgey malevolence of Souvenir is yet another song fuelled with the kind of sexy, provocative snapshots that have been the focal point of Moreno’s songcraft. So too the sensually hypnotic I Think About You All the Time. Another open love letter where war ships and riding waves in cars are used as composites to frame romantic images that form alt-metal’s ultimate love song. Both songs, chapters that already include the likes of RX Queen, Cherry Waves and Sextape.
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Elsewhere, and CxZ and Milk of the Madonna are cuts that turn good albums into potentially greats ones. New-era Deftones with ebb and flow dynamism, as Cunningham’s blast beats and Moreno’s towering vocals eclipse Carpenter’s pile-driving guitars. Once again, Moreno’s abstract stories pull you into the ether, becoming stronger with age and refined with the high-wire theatre that makes your heart skip a beat.
And it doesn’t end with Cut Hands. Like fire surging through the mainlines (Delgado providing a subtle nod to The Prodigy’s Firestarter, too), it’s followed by the ceaseless rush of ~ Metal Dream, as Moreno negotiates the melodic crest, channeling calm and chaos as only he knows how. And having always thrived in the clutch, Deftones make no exception with closing cut, Departing the Body – the kind of seamless epic that culminates all great records.
Which is what Private Music will probably go on to be. Not a resurgence. Not nostalgic, just Deftones finding enchanting new pockets in their sound world to guide their listeners to, and as they ride into the crescendo sounding as pulsating and forceful as ever, perhaps they haven’t been in a better collective headspace as they are now.
Private Music is out now via Warner. Purchase here.
