Deftones
Private Music

Everyone knows Deftones, everyone loves Deftones, everyone buys their albums. Yes, because Deftones are one of those great bands that manage to please just about everyone: Carpenter’s riffs will melt your face, but then comes a delicate breeze of shoegaze or post-rock that sends you into raptures; Chino’s desperate screams tear your heart out, but then our ‘Chinese’ knows how to sing with a nectarine-like melody; and any Metallic blast is softened, because no emotion is ever lost. Well, twenty days ago Deftones released a new album, private music. And there’s something I’d like to say.

I could talk about technical details, but what should I say? It’s a Deftones album, and it’s their tenth. Are you one of the four people on Earth who don’t know Deftones? Fix that right away: go and listen to Around the Fur and White Pony, then move on to the rest and you’ll be all set. I could say that from the very first note the album makes you feel at home, that locked club is built on masterful tension, that ecdysis and even more so cut hands manage to remind you of their glory days, that souvenir is a fabulous song with an anodyne post-rock outro; the only thing that truly feels new, though, is that in departing the body our Chino even tries to imitate the late Peter Steele. But there’s something else I’d like to say.

That is, Deftones, whose debut dates back thirty years, founded when the members were just in high school and are now in their fifties, manage—without changing anything—to deliver what, in the opinion of the writer, is the Metal album of the year, and one of the very best overall. Maybe there isn’t much competition out there, but... but you know that whenever you see a white animal on the cover, you can trust it.

Four balls, not five, because it lacks that spark. And besides, everyone already loves them.