Hi, everyone. Lawthony Suittano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Deftones album, private music.

California alternative metal legends, Deftones are back with their 10th full-length LP. It is their first in five years, really since 2020's Ohms, making this the longest gap there has been between two Deftones albums, as the band, up until this point, has had a very lengthy and consistent career.

Maybe that gap was necessary because even though the reception for Ohms was relatively positive, I mean, the negative backlash to my review of the album said as much. Personally, I found that project to be one of the least inspired in their entire catalog so far as it felt neither adventurous or even up to the band's usual creative standards if they were going to play this safe and predictable on an album such as this.

But private music marks a new chapter for the band, maybe not a brand new direction, but still a new chapter. Because culturally right now, I don't know if there's a whole lot of demand for Deftones to change their sound up that radically. While I do think the band's salad days are long behind them at this point, and I have accepted a while ago that it's highly unlikely they are ever going to drop a record again that hit is hard for me as White Pony did when I was in high school.

Right now, at this very moment, though, the band is seemingly as popular as ever with a renewed interest in their trademark brand of crushing but dreamy alt-metal, thanks to a new, young, passionate fan base of zoomers. And all this fuss has not just led to a lot of love for the band's classic albums, which is to be expected, more or less. There's also been a lot more appreciation for the more recent projects the band has dropped throughout the 2010s. And with so much support behind that signature Deftones sound right now, what better group to be stewards for it than the Deftones themselves?

And the good news is the band sounds pretty excited to do exactly that on private music with producer Nick Raskulinecz. Nick worked with the band previously on 2010's Diamond Eyes as well on Koi No Yokon in 2012, which did have me a little bit worried because Diamond Eyes is far from one of my favorite Deftones releases, as I found a lot of the songwriting on that to be a little bit too basic, straightforward, and formulaic. Many the sounds on this record, very loud and rigid and blocky.

But honestly, I think the production and performances on private music come across a lot more soft around the edges, more fluid. The experience of this record feels a lot more like a really well-recorded live show or session recording, as opposed to a bunch of isolated bits of instrumentation being punched into a multi-track. Even if that is what private music is, I mean, kudos on managing to imbue it with a sound that comes across as at least a bit live.

So, yeah, the result here is a record and experience that feels genuinely intoxicating and alluring, like a lot of the band's classic material. And I would say on some of these tracks, too, there is definitely a newfound purpose in Chino's vocal performances as well. Due, I'm sure, to a lot of the lyrics dealing pretty directly in him grappling with mental health issues, inner turmoil, and showing strength and endurance during hardship.

So there's a noticeable amount of tension, aggression, and passion going into these songs. And it's noticeable right from the thunderous opener of the record, which was also a single, and sets up really the thick ocean of blaring guitars that will be immersed in for a majority of this record's run time. The verses on this thing are full of chunky riffs and extended notes, with Chino's vocal sounding absolutely ferocious during some of the shouty spoken word passages. Meanwhile, his legendary cleans on the choruses are sounding as solid as ever.

Again, great start to the record, and Chino leans even more into this very aggressive spoken word style on the following "Locked Up" in a way that makes me feel slightly ambivalent toward the song, honestly. But at the very least, he is sounding amped.

"Milk of the Madonna" is another strong single to have dropped before the album came out. And these highlights are met with equally strong cuts like "Ecdysis", which features these very skeletal stripped back verses laid out with these sinister deep bass lines. An anthemic hook. It's just this straight up classic loud/soft, dynamic, Deftones sound with some even more classic groove metal movement to it. The cherry on top are the subtle touches of synthesizers that just sweeten up the mix in a really interesting way. The whole entire thing just sounds mountainous.

I'm also loving the track "Infinite Source", which is packed with these bright, crunchy guitars that lean into a really intense feeling of bliss that very few other tracks on this album have, at least to this degree, because this track sounds like bathing in sunlight or flying through the clouds, but still bringing the heaviness and edge that a good metal song should. Again, it's just peak Defones, and nobody does it as well.

Now, with that being said, I do think there are some moments in the tracklist here where the band feels a bit lost in their own sauce, like with the overly slow dramatic pacing of the verses on "Souvenir", a track that would be a total snooze if not for some of the righteous chord changes and sense that the song experiences at a few points, most notably right before the middle of the song.

Also, I don't really know what Chino is trying to do on the track "Cut Hands", with these little rap metal flows that I feel like the band hasn't really made a part of their sound in quite a while. While I know there are key cuts on Around the Fur that specialize in this thing a bit, this is not really the band's bread and butter nor is it a part of their sound that has aged the best, which is why it's even weirder to see them lean into this further on "Metal Dream" right after.

With that being said, though, there are some other fiery highlights in the tracklist, like with "CXZ", which kicks off with these burning, shrill layers of guitar, with the drums really fighting to punch through this mix. And while it is true, these passages are paired with some slower, more easy-going moments to give this song some much needed variation, I don't know if I'm into the song itself as much as I am into just the intensity of all of it.

Toward the back end of this album, we enter into ballad time with the song "I Think About You All The Time". Chino gives one of his most raw and expressive vocal performances on the entire record here. There are some heavy and final passages in 3/4 toward the back end of this track that make me feel like I'm listening to the alt metal equivalent of a prom slow dance.

After this point, though, unfortunately, there aren't really any other tracks in the tracklist that I have super strong feelings on. Even the closer that, while heavy, I don't really think adds that much more to the tracklist. Certainly not anything else that all the other songs so far didn't already.

Still, with that being said, I do think private music is one of Deftones' most solid records in years. But if it's missing anything, I think it's just a sense of adventure, which is not only what makes a lot of their early work so exciting, but also creative peaks in their catalog, such as Saturday Night Wrist.

And while it is clear that private music is fueled by a lot more passion and excitement than maybe Deftones' past couple of records were, a lot of this record feels like the band is playing to expectations more than they are challenging themselves, which is why I'm feeling about a decent to strong 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Deftones, Forever.