Photo by Maurice Nunez

In a time where people feel less able to define the world around them through quantifiable indicators, we have become more dependent on “vibes”. And has there ever been a band in heavy music more able to summon their own indefinable vibe than Deftones? The answer has to be no.

With their tenth studio album, private music, Deftones are cresting a resurgence of interest in the band that is taking them to new heights. It's been a long, thirty-year journey since their debut album, Adrenaline, endorsed by none other than Madonna when she released it on her Maverick imprint. The band sat somewhat innocuously next to Alanis Morissette on the label, but both have aged remarkably well, judging from a superb set by Morissette at the world-famous Glastonbury Festival this year. It was a shame that Deftones had to pull out of their own slot due to illness just before the zeitgeist-defining headline performance by Charli XCX on the festival's Other Stage. A shame because Deftones couldn't take the opportunity to ram home the fact that they have captured the spirit of the age themselves, not once – with 2000's White Pony – but twice, with private music, fueled by TikTok plays, Gen-Z support and Y2K nostalgia.

It helps that private music is an excellent album; confident enough that it sequences some of its most interesting material towards the end. “cut hands” sees Chino Moreno's staccato rap inflections and screams return, with a discordant guitar sequence faintly recalling, of all things, the intro of Slayer's “Seasons in the Abyss”. Then there's the ethereal closer, “Departing the Body”, where Moreno sings in an unusually low register, effortlessly touching a metaphysical truth that Deftones always seem to reach with nonchalant ease. private music breaks ground for the band and continues to furnish the sound world they have crafted down the years. Their influence is everywhere, as recently attested to Knotfest by Car Bomb, or heard in the music of Dutch 2010s progressive metalcore outfit Textures (check out the amazing Dualism album), and numerous acts in the rock, pop and electronic space. But only Deftones truly sound like Deftones.

Moreno's contribution is unmistakable, as is Abe Cunningham's commanding drumming and Frank Delgado's sonic texturing. But the key that unlocks Deftones’ greatness has to be Stephen Carpenter. I've been concerned by his absences from international touring from the band in recent years. As an anti-vaxxer, he retreated into anxiety about flying and being stranded in a foreign country suddenly put in lockdown, against the backdrop of a paranoid world ushered in by the COVID pandemic. “I reject/Both sides of what I'm being told,” went the opening lines of single “Genesis” from 2020's Ohms. When Carpenter started to refuse to travel abroad, Deftones robbed itself of their Johnny Marr – the essential counterpart to Moreno's Morrissey. Carpenter's return to form on private music (after the very good, but not great, Ohms and 2016's Gore) is a cause for new and old fans to celebrate. Now, please come back to Europe.

The new album has reminded me a lot of the release of 2010's Diamond Eyes. Back then, following the car accident that put founding bassist Chi Cheng in a coma (he never recovered and died of a heart attack in 2013), there was a question mark over Deftones’ ability to continue without Cheng's flurry of dreadlocks holding down the low end on stage left. Diamond Eyes blew all doubt out of the water. I still think it might be their greatest album, driven by Carpenter's playing which is so powerful, dextrous and unrelenting that it seemed his riffs were carved out of obsidian. 

Carpenter had started to learn to play guitar after dreaming about the hand shape to make a power chord after he saw it in a Ratt video on TV in the eighties. He feels he is the “odd one out” in Deftones, musically speaking. It's his oddness that drives the band into unconventional and exciting sonic terrain. Carpenter has said that Cheng deliberately played things that Carpenter showed him differently “out of principal': “I hated it, but it's what makes it work. We have many commonalities amongst us. It is ultimately the differences that give us our advantage overall, musically. Because we're not complying with each other on certain things.”

There's more than a little of the outro of “Diamond Eyes” at the end of “cut hands”. Also from the new album, “ecdysis” has the same corkscrewing intensity of “Rocket Skates” from Diamond Eyes. Ironically, since this is the first album since bassist and former Quicksand member Sergio Vega's departure, it also sounds a hell of a lot like classic dry-as-a-bone Quicksand. private music leaves us in no doubt that a present and in-form Stephen Carpenter means an in-form Deftones.

Following Diamond Eyes, Deftones only waited two years to release Koi No Yokan, where songs like “Tempest” and “Rosemary” saw them perfect the mantric metal that emerged during the White Pony sessions on “Change (In the House of Flies)” and “Passenger”. The latter famously has guest vocals from Tool's Maynard James Keenan, who brought Tibetan singing bowls and champagne to the studio to help ease the band's writer's block. His advice that the members swapped instruments and jam for a while were met with disbelief, but something was subsequently uncorked for Deftones and the music started flowing. Keenan's guest spot on “Passenger” was a moment of genius and subsequently acted as a vehicle for other generational talents, such as Paramore's Hayley Williams, to jump onstage and belt it out. Twelve years later, on Koi No Yokan, when Moreno crooned on “Rosemary”, “There's no sound/But the engine's drone/Our minds set free/To roam”, before Carpenter's monolithic guitar cut through the air, it felt like Keenan's mission was complete.

It's also somewhat remarkable that Deftones still have the sorts of riffs in the tank that propel songs like “milk of the madonna”, the kind that builds an almost unbearable tension that seems hard to resolve, before breaking into a lush, momentary respite. From “i think about you all the time” on private music to “Sextape” on Diamond Eyes, back to “Mascara” on 1997 masterpiece Around the Fur, the band's love of Depeche Mode and The Cure has long given them a broader musical vocabulary than most of their contemporaries. The bands that have come since under their influence have enjoyed the diversity of Deftones’ taste. As has The Cure's Robert Smith, when he invited Deftones to perform when he curated his instalment of the Meltdown Festival at London's Royal Festival Hall in 2018.

That Deftones continue to develop out of the long shadow of Around the Fur is a testament to their tremendous, stubborn sense of their sound. I was lucky to be fifteen years old and on the ground floor when that album came out, seeing them at smallish theater venues in London with the scouring Will Haven in tow. I cut my hair off and spiked it up to look like Moreno. Years later, when the band played Brixton Academy in 2013, I was thrilled when Moreno acknowledged my old-school Will Haven hoodie from the stage. I even (temporarily) lost my wedding ring at Alexandra Palace whilst over-enthusiastically moshing to “My Own Summer (Shove It)” in 2017.

When that first riff kicks in, I become that great white shark in the song's video smelling blood in the water. I wonder how Carpenter feels having written the greatest riff of all time as that song kicks in, and then the second greatest riff of all time as he moves down the guitar neck detonating bombs as he goes. Watching 73-year-old former Billy Joel drummer Liberty DeVitto tearing into the song, having never heard it before, for a Drumeo performance last year, just confirms its powerhouse genius.

When Moreno was asked in a recent Guardian interview how it feels to know that one record-shop worker sold more copies per week of Around the Fur to teenagers than Fleetwood Mac's Rumours or Nirvana's Nevermind, his answer was typically humble.

“I would hope it’s because we made some good records that have been able to transcend time, and that people of all ages find something within them they connect with,” he answered. “It’s probably no different from when I was a kid discovering groups like Led Zeppelin. And I’m not saying that we’re as great as them, but those bands were around for many years before I discovered them. I was able to connect with what they created, and it’s a lovely thing. We’ve always made a constant decision to not date ourselves with the music we make. We were always afraid of being lumped-in with the nu metal groups that came up at the same time we did. Not that we felt we were in another league; we just wanted to have our own identity. So we would make certain creative decisions to try not to fall too deep into any category.”

Deftones’ creative decisions have served them well. Led Zeppelin made great music for ten years and then stopped with the death of John Bonham. Deftones have weathered their own tragedy and, thirty years later, are still delivering on their promise. They exist in a category of one; but it's one that resonates through the generations, from X to Z. For many it's a private passion, publicly expressed, and long may it continue. And if you don't feel the same: Shove it.

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Coinciding with the release of Private Music, Deftones have begun thr second leg of their North American tour. The arena run will feature support from Phantogram and IDLES will take on select dates of the run as direct support with The Barbarians of California opening each night. 

Additionally, Deftones have been confirmed for a handful of important festival plays including Louder Than Life in Louisville, KY this September, Aftershock in their hometown of Sacramento later this fall as well as their annual Dia De Los Deftones festival set for this November. 

The band has also confirmed 2026 touring plans with a massive European run due to begin in January. The trek will feature support from Denzel Curry and Drug Church, starting out in Paris on January 29th. The finale will land in London at The O2 on February 20th. 

See a complete list of dates and cities below. Get tickets - HERE

Private Music is now available. Get the album - HERE