The Alternative Metal Thread

Deftones - Private Music (2025)

Genre: Alt-Metal

I actually tried to get through Koi no yokan today after starting Private Music and quitting, deciding that my goal was to further profile the band before heading to their new release.  I chose Koi no yokan because it's basically ranked as the third best Deftones album out of their impressive catalog, but the first three songs sounded totally the same even with that obnoxious secondary tagging on RYM: Shoegaze, Alternative Rock, Dream Pop, Post-Metal, Post-Hardcore.  That really pissed me off, So I just went back to their new album.  Besides, after having been underwhelmed by my Sadus exploration, which was necessary for the Metal Academy list challenges, I needed some kind of good album to complete some kind of relevant list I'm working on.  In this case, it's 2025.

Now the first two songs are very short, and despite the transitioning being flawless, the two still manage to change directions and sound a bit different from Koi no yokan.  The third one is weirder, much less reliant on the general Deftones noise at first.  It starts with an industrial beat and sonar-bleep guitar playing.  The atmosphere feels more attributed to standard alternative metal rather than the overused Deftones noise backdrop.  And while track 4, Infinite Source, goes back to the noise, it feels a bit more like the melodic punk-infused alt-rock of the 2000's, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Quite a few of the songs are very short, and sometimes they justify their length with a proper usage of simplicity.  But at other times, the songs may feel undercooked.  And as I expected, despite the occasional change of pace, many of the songs go for the same emotional core and basic sound.  In other words, this is a Deftones album for fans that plague places like RYM.

But you wanna know the most impressive thing?  I cannot believe this singer, Stephen Carpenter, STILL SOUNDS LIKE A FUCKING TEENAGER.  His voice doesn't age.  His voice aging would obviously be a sing of the apocalypse.  This bad is thirty years old, and this founding member is 55.  This is actually something that kept the album going for me, even when it started to get monotonous.  I suppose this is actually my favorite thing about the band.  But as far as the album goes, I REALLY REALLY wish they would focus on the diversity factor more like they did on White Pony.  I mean, what's the goddamn problem?  Most people say it's their best album.  It's the only Deftones album I gave above a 91/100, and by that I mean I gave it a 99.

Overall, this was a fun and surprisingly brisk time for more of the same Deftones.  There was just enough melodic and lyrical imagination to work.  I was never that much of an alt-metal guy, let alone a Deftones guy, but this was fun.  Deftones once again carries the aquatic noise factor of albums like Biomech very well and with a good sense of pacing and slow melodies.

85

Slipknot - "We Are Not Your Kind" (2019)

Yet again I find myself enjoying a Slipknot record without ever feeling like it'll be something that I'll return to in the future. In fact, I've scored all five of the Slipknot albums I've rated a respectable 3.5 stars but I can never seem to quite make the leap over to my more desirable scores. I will suggest that "We Are Not Your Kind" is one of the more underrated of the Iowa alternative metal legends' back catalogue though as I place it behind only 2001's "Iowa" in my Slipknot pecking order. It's a much more diverse record that sees the band flexing their creative muscles more than I can remember them doing in the past. There are a few dud tracks amongst the fourteen on offer but the majority of this release is really pretty decent.

For fans of Mushroomhead, Code Orange & Korn.

3.5/5

Don Broco - Nightmare Tripping (2026)

One of my buddies is way more into Metalcore and the more recent, trendy/adjacent bands to it like Bilmuri than I'll ever be, but we still swap recommendations every now and again. Don Broco has done way more than I thought they did when all I knew them for was their one single "Action" from 2019, which was fun and quirky playlist material that painted this band as those slightly weird guys doing some slightly weird things within the Metalcore adjacent space. Enter Nightmare Tripping, the only full length Don Broco release either of us has paid attention to and I'm almost embarrassed to admit how much I've been listening to this recently. I've got some serious bias against this album since it has a ton of things I generally dislike about Metalcore or Alternative Metal bands trying to be quirky or forward thinking. Not that I don't want progress considering I'm not the biggest fan of generic Metalcore to begin with, but generally these attempts come off as shoehorned or the band eventually works its way back around to generic genre tropes that they can't escape from no matter how many trap beats they add. 

However, I think Don Broco managed to defy the odds with Nightmare Tripping. I'm not going to say that this album is great, but I'm surprised to say that I think this album is good. It actually feels fresh in a way that I wasn't ready for. That doesn't mean that a lot of the ideas are good, there are parts of Nightmare Tripping that seriously work on my nerves and it's a bit of a mixed bag on the whole, but each song goes for something unexpected or fun whether it sticks the landing or not. I think that's the biggest factor here, Don Broco managed to make an album that is just a blast to listen to every now and again. It's carried by its singles for sure, but I think those singles could change depending on your taste or patience for EDM beats or sappy, generic clean singing in your Metal. For me personally it's "Cellophane", "Nightmare Tripping", and for some reason I've had "Euphoria" stuck in my head sometimes. The title track is especially off-the-wall, as it features Chad Kroeger from Nickelback and actually manages to make it work somehow.

Nightmare Tripping is such a strange album for me because each song has sections I think are pretty creative, followed by some sections that critically I can't get behind, but I can't deny that it's held up as a fun album. I feel like I need a few of those sometimes between all the analysis and all. 

3/5