private music (CD)

Deftones have always defined boundless creativity in the music space. Across nine studio albums, they have carved out an unmistakable sonic identity — ferocious yet dreamlike, while making space for constant refinement and surprise. Now, decades on from the groove-forward sound of their era-defining debut, Adrenaline, and following a long line of masterpieces including 2000’s White Pony, 2010’s Diamond Eyes and 2020’s Ohms — an album that earned them their second and third Grammy nominations — they return with one of the most focused statements of their career: private music.

Joining the band’s creative core of Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham and Frank Delgado (as well as touring bassist Fred Sablan, who appears on the album) is producer Nick Raskulinecz, who previously worked on Diamond Eyes and 2012’s riveting Koi No Yokan. The result is a lean, masterfully paced 11-song set that plays like a new Deftones benchmark.

Meditating on the beauty and peril of nature, the challenge of cultivating a positive mindset and visions of a journey beyond the physical realm, private music showcases Deftones at their most evolved. At once a psychedelic voyage and a skull-rattling wallop, it’s the latest peak in a catalog filled with immersive, emotive triumphs.