April 2026 Featured Release - The Gateway Edition

Alright everyone its been a good LONG while since we featured a Deftones album in the Gateway (I am probably the one responsible for that OOPS!) but that streak ends now with Private Music. I really enjoyed this record and think that it is the best thing they've released since Diamond Eyes. If you're a Deftones fan, you owe yourself Private Music.

Fair warning: if you didn't like Deftones before, this album will likely not change your mind. I still recommend that you check it out regardless.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1gmWnG5TeRj91Tdm2lpEvJ

https://metal.academy/releases/61927

I ALWAYS enjoy a Deftones album as they're quite simply the most consistent alternative metal act to ever have hit the global scene & they never disappoint. They are kinda AC/DC-ish in that you'll never be surprised by what you receive though. For all the hype around the scope of their influences, every Deftones record sounds pretty much the same as there's never a drastic departure from their past glories. They just tend to experiment a little with what they put in the gaps between the heavy stuff that makes up most of each record. In saying that though, boy do they know how to write a chunky alternative metal song & that's still very evident on what is now their tenth full-length album.

Unlike many people, I'm not gonna claim that "private music" is some kind of return to form because the truth is that these guys have never dropped their game. 2016's "Gore" record has been unfairly treated while their last one "Ohms" is nothing short of an unheralded classic as far as I'm concerned so I have no problem admitting that I always expect gold from this group. And "private music" does offer more gold, perhaps not the shiniest gold they've produced, but gold nonetheless. And that's enough for me, ya know? Sure, I will say that I think "private music" is probably the least impressive Deftones record since their debut "Adrenaline" but it's still a beautifully produced effort that further highlights how important these Sacramento dudes have become over the years.

Opener "My Mind is a Mountain" is one their finest works & hit me like a tonne of bricks while "Cut Hands" sits in a similar class to someone like Tool. There are three or four numbers that see the quality levels dropping a touch (generally when they make an attempt at more melody as I greatly prefer a screaming Chino over a thick wall of chunky alt-metal riffage) but there's nothing like a dud to be found here. I just could have done with a couple more classics to justify the enormous praise this release seems to be receiving from fans at the moment. I love Deftones & I love this record. It's not any stronger & doesn't really differentiate itself all that much from anything else they've done since their very early days though so it's certainly not gonna convert any naysayers.

For fans of Fleshwater, Thornhill & Bleed.

4/5

My review still seems correct following a revisit to this one tonight:

I posted Private Music in a thread on another forum I frequent and got asked by one of the regulars there to help them understand the appeal of Deftones. After a lot of words, I came to the overall conclusion that I respect Deftones because they never attempt to “be” anything. Their range of musical styles and influences could take up a whole paragraph of this review quite easily. However, the comparison I eventually made was that in my experience of metalcore/deathcore, there are some acts who like to step around inside Bilie Elish style electro-pop ecosystems for a few minutes before landing a twenty-second breakdown of crushing riffs to keep some semblance of metal relevant in their sound. For some of these acts, they could quite easily for go the metal parts and just stick with the non-metal if they do it well enough. However, although Deftones work with a blueprint, it is one that exists in such a size already that on their best records, the sky is literally the limit and metal may not always obviously be on the cards.

That having been said. I cannot recall the last time I actively waited for a Deftones album, let alone really enjoyed one in its entirety. Following the huge impact that Diamond Eyes had on me when I returned from a hiatus from metal in 2010 was realistically never going to be repeated, I know. When Koi No Yokan dropped some two years later, I lapped it up most definitely but my levels of fascination with its predecessor were never repeated. Working back from Diamond Eyes into their discography rewarded me with White Pony of course, which will go down as one of my all-time favourite alt metal releases, albeit I do not have an extensive listening history within that sub-set of metal music. When it came then to their more modern records, Gore and Ohms just failed to hold my interest and I drifted from the Deftones world of gazey, alt-metal, trip-hop, dream-pop music altogether.

With more of a focus on new music this year, I soon got wind of the singles ahead of the release of Private Music itself. Whilst neither ‘My Mind is a Mountain’ or ‘Milk of the Madonna’ bristled with any true sense of a reinvigorated intensity returning to the Deftones sound, I have hung fire passing any judgement until the album itself was available. Whilst they were both perfectly inoffensive tracks in isolation, I was more interested in how they fitted into the usual multi-textured layers of a whole album by Chino and co. It does not take long for me to find things that I like very much about Private Music. Whilst in isolation ‘My Mind is a Mountain’ is an appetiser, as an album opener it sets out the stall of the record well. Bold in the riff department, whilst also letting the percussion do its thing it marries perfectly with ‘Locked In’ which then follows a similar blueprint, leading into the chugging ‘Ecdysis’. Exploring the bass to get the pace going before establishing a very familiar sound to the Diamond Eyes era that I am such a fan of adds much needed familiarity for me to this track.

The stories within stories layering of the Deftones writing is alive and kicking still on Private Music. Watch the video to ‘My Mind is a Mountain’ and see Chino dancing to a very different theme to what is playing. This is a good thing for me, seeing the heavier end of their sound being embraced a little more whilst still having an agenda the listener must work on uncovering. Whilst far from perfect, the flow of tracks this time around feels more cohesive than it has in a while. Running the usual musical gauntlet over forty-two minutes there are still some golden runs of tracks, especially towards the end of the record. ‘Cut Hands’ through to album closer ‘Departing the Body’ springs to mind. Two up-tempo pieces followed by a more poised track to finish shows the maturity that the band clearly have at this stage.

Caution remains on calling this a return to form perhaps. If I was ranking the record against the last few over the past fifteen years, then Private Music sits in third behind Koi No Yokan and Diamond Eyes respectively. A large part of me doubts the band can achieve the heights they once enjoyed, but Private Music is evidence enough that the potential remains.

3.5/5