Deftones is considered a staple in the Nu-Metal genre, and fans have been waiting five years for a new album. Thankfully, the band has delivered with private music, released on August 22. As anticipated as this album was, however, it is a solid 3 out of 5 stars.
As the fated date of release approached, I kept glancing at this album on Spotify. I had been waiting years for this. When they finally revealed the song titles, I went “oh no”. All of the song titles are in lower case. Even the album name is in lower case. It’s like they’re trying to be cool by not capitalizing letters like an edgy teenager’s text messages. It looks like a mid-life crisis. Just be the grownups that you are and capitalize your titles.
While this album was in production one of the band members, Sergio Vega, quit because the band was sticking to the status quo.
The two singles that they released were also Spotify Premium exclusives before the album actually came out. Very… greedy. This is disappointing because it seems like the band members only care about revenue and not their listeners.
Anyway, what is private music actually like? It sounds a lot like their Koi No Yokan album, and has similar heavy instrumentals. If you were already a fan, you’ll appreciate this album. Some of my favorites of the tracks are: “locked club”, “cXz”, and “milk of the madonna”. Another favorite among many others is “infinite source,” which is arguably the best song, because of its lovely melody and vocals. The rest of the songs are honestly forgettable as they all sound like other tracks of theirs. All of these songs could have been demos or unreleased from a decade ago and I wouldn’t be surprised. Overall, this album is pretty OK and gets extra bonus points for the unique cover art.
What I love about Deftones’s fans is how everyone has different opinions on which is their best album. Some think private music is their worst album while others think this is their best release in the past decade. It’s great that there isn’t one obvious right answer when comparing their discography.
Their tenth studio album, private music, is unsurprisingly far from their best work, however, it is up there in quality with their other most recent releases.