Review Summary: A love we chased and found.
The success of
Private Music likely won’t come as a surprise to anyone. The tenth offering from Sacramento’s alt-metal titans is so unapologetically Deftones that some fans may lament the lack of any adventurous experimentation that resulted in the likes of
Saturday Night Wrist and
Gore to stand out in their discography in spite of their divisive reception, oh and who could forget that spellbinding detour in “Entombed” off of 2012’s ambitious
Koi No Yokan? In this sense,
Private Music is mostly comfort food of the highest order with a palpable sense of urgency to the material on offer that was mostly absent on their previous outing
Ohms. Most notably,
Private Music is positively infested with earworms galore – choruses like the ones found on “metal dream” or the Teenage Wrist-esque “ecdysis” soar to unexpected heights and Carpenter’s guitar work expertly weaves in and out of grimy distortion and lustrous clean riffs. Impressively, Chino’s dreamy vocals just feel more pivotal here than they have in a long time. While the production and mixing, courtesy of Nick Raskulinecz (returning from
Koi Noi Yokan), mostly opts to keep Chino behind the instrumentation. His presence becomes more of an added layer to the soundscape rather than being forced onto the spotlight; listeners will likely struggle to recall any immediate lyrical zingers on a first runthrough and that’s okay – just one tango with “infinite source” will have you convinced it’s the catchiest Deftones track to date and a strong contender for one of their best songs ever made.
The back half of
Private Music ups the ante somewhat in the experimental department. The synth ambience that bookends “souvenir” serves as the perfect respite from the dissonant hellscape of “cXz”, before we plummet head first into the hypersexual “i think about you all the time” – it’s a mostly par for the course Deftones ballad with the chorus line of “I’m riding your wave” hitting with all but the subtlety of a sledgehammer, yet its appeal remains wholly undeniable. At its worst,
Private Music emits a comforting sense of familiarity. Abe Cunningham remains entrenched six feet deep in the pocket; every drum fill and snare displacement performed with an unwavering amount of intent and Fred Sablan's bass playing is more complimentary than noticeable, letting Carpenter’s guitar work glide by like a pleasant hymn throughout every song. In all,
Private Music is more of a reassertion of greatness rather than a bold new chapter for the band. Its 42 minute runtime satisfyingly covers all the necessities without trickling out in a miasma of needless self-indulgence. The band have since long cemented themselves as absolute songwriting savants in the genre and here on album number 10, they successfully build upon that legacy without skipping a beat. Though at times lacking ambition, the finest moments of
Private Music are absolute all-timers – poised to throw a wrench into any “top 5 Deftones albums” list for the foreseeable future.
