private music: The Last Roar of Deftones or a Calculated Echo?

The cover speaks before the songs do. Light colors, animal motifs, a deliberate echo of White Pony, the album that changed everything back in 2000. private music presents itself as the direct heir to that legacy, but here lies the first contradiction: how can the music of a band built to fill stadiums be “private”? Maybe Chino Moreno and company understand something we’re only beginning to decipher about the dual nature of modern musical experience. Headphones turn any track into an intimate confessional, while Spotify turns every private listen into public data. 

The title works as a self-ironic prophecy. This “private music” is destined to become one of the band’s most popular records, fueled by the digital consensus that has canonized Deftones as architects of the sound of recent decades. The internet neither forgives nor forgets, and its algorithm has decided that this Sacramento band belongs in the pantheon of alternative metal. But here’s the trap: when the collective unconscious and the advertising machine join forces, are we still talking about music—or cultural product?

Nick Raskulinecz returns to the producer’s chair after shaping Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan, which explains the overwhelming enthusiasm among diehard devotees. For them, Raskulinecz is the Terry Date of the new millennium, capable of capturing the Deftones essence without the experimental risks that sometimes derail the band. Yet this safety comes at a price: private music sounds like Deftones playing Deftones—a controlled version of what once was pure, spontaneous combustion. 

The signature elements are present but tamed. The deep guitars that once felt like they erupted from the Earth’s core now resonate from a digital lab. Chino Moreno still maintains that ethereal quality that links him to Morrissey—that gift of making pain sound beautiful—but even his voice seems aware of its own power, measuring each note as if it were emotional currency. my mind is a mountain opens with chords invoking Metallica before sliding into Smashing Pumpkins territory, a move that showcases both the band’s versatility and its tendency toward calculated nostalgia.

The paradox intensifies on tracks like locked club and ecdysis. The guitars adopt those mechanical timbres we associate with Meshuggah, but without the obsessive precision that makes the Swedes work. Here, repetition becomes mannerism, and atmosphere smothers what should have been detonation. The drums—crucial to the Deftones sound—are relegated to the background by a production that privileges texture over brute force. It’s like watching a boxer fight with silk gloves: the technique is there, but the impact fades. 

And yet, private music reveals flashes of genuine brilliance that justify the anticipation. infinite source works like a time capsule that brings us back to the most inspired Deftones, while milk of the madonna and cut hands prove the band can still tap into that primal intensity that once made Around the Fur feel like a revelation, not a confirmation. These are sparks of creative power, reminders of what once set them apart.

Is private music Deftones’ best album? Absolutely not. But it’s also far from the disaster some purists might proclaim. It’s something more interesting: a document on how a band navigates the tension between innovation and expectation, between artistic intimacy and commercial relevance. It sits comfortably alongside White Pony and Diamond Eyes not by surpassing their achievements, but by acknowledging that in 2025, private music is a public contradiction we’ve all, in some way, learned to accept. The real question isn’t whether the album is good or bad—it’s whether that distinction still matters when streaming has turned every track into the soundtrack of our fragmented lives, making music feel increasingly like background ornament rather than a leading force.