It’s one thing to be this far into a career and make a record this strong; it’s another when it stands among your best. Private Music arrives as one of the most focused and assured statements Deftones have ever made, reaffirming a band that has never been content to coast on legacy. Across nine previous albums, Deftones built a singular sonic identity — ferocious yet dreamlike — from Adrenaline through White Pony, Diamond Eyes, and Ohms, the latter earning them their second and third Grammy nominations. Private Music feels like the distillation of everything they’ve learned along the way.
Reuniting with producer Nick Raskulinecz, who previously worked with the band on Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan, Deftones deliver a lean, masterfully paced 11-song album that plays with clarity and intent. Featuring the core lineup of Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham and Frank Delgado, alongside touring bassist Fred Sablan, Private Music explores themes of nature, inner balance, and transcendence. It’s both a psychedelic immersion and a crushing physical experience — a late-career peak in a catalogue defined by emotional weight and constant evolution.
TRACKS:
- my mind is a mountain
- locked club
- ecdysis
- infinite source
- souvenir
- cXz
- i think about you all the time
- milk of the madonna
- cut hands
- ~metal dream
- departing the body
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