Album Review: Deftones – private music
2 min read
Deftones have always thrived in a space between beauty and brutality, and with private music they lean into that duality once again. With their knack for building soundscapes, Deftones don’t disappoint with their opening track my mind is a mountain. As heavy as it is hypnotic, thunderous riffs crash against soaring, dreamlike vocals setting the mood as dense, immersive and strangely comforting all at once.
From there locked club and ecdysis have sly, darker undercurrents that feel alive. It’s like the band is sculpting sound rather than just playing it. You can feel them crawling along your skin as you listen, twisting the atmosphere around you all the while. infinite source follows with crashing drums, jagged riffs and a hazy melody that helps to soften the edges of the track. As the chorus opens up, tension turns into release which is unmistakably Deftones’ signature style.
As you drift deeper into the album, more of those hazy moments start to surface. souvenir feels like a deep exhale, a slow motion drifty piece laced with shoegaze textures that invites you to get lost and be carried away. cXz is interesting because it has an off-kilter rhythm. It tilts the lens with its jagged, glitchy tones, pulling you back to attention after listening to souvenir. Then there’s i think about you all the time with vocals that are both intimate and aching. It carries with it a powerful tenderness showing a side to Deftones that is as bruised as it is beautiful.
The record continues to glide between moods as we reach track 8, milk of the madonna. It’s bold, volcanic and easily one of the most intense moments on the album with its grinding riffs and unrelenting energy. cut hands follows suit with its chaotic and unhinged aggression, speaking to us through guitars and vocals. Bending the atmosphere once again, we arrive at ~metal dream, strange, woozy and otherworldly, like a fever you can’t shake.
Closing the album, departing the body feels less like an ending and more like being carried off into the ether. It drifts outward, hushed and expansive, leaving you sitting in silence after it fades, not quite ready to let go. private music plays like a conversation between all the sides of Deftones. Three decades in and they’re still evolving, still challenging themselves and still pushing into new, immersive territory.
