DEFTONES: Private Music (NEO/NU METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Thirty years after their first album, "Adrenaline", Deftones are attempting to show with this tenth album that neo-metal still has something to say. It's no small feat, given that the youthful rage that drove them in the 1990s has inevitably evolved over the years and with success. Indeed, playing neo-metal with your friends in a garage when you're 20 and the style is in vogue is not the same as reviving an outdated genre when you're over 50, sitting comfortably on a pile of platinum records, waiting for a sold-out tour before the album has even been released.

If Deftones quickly carved out a place for themselves on the neo-metal scene, it was mainly because they were able to create their own sub-genre by bringing emotion to a style that was sorely lacking it. The sensitivity of singer Chino Moreno, a major characteristic of Deftones, has something to do with it, which has earned the band the label “emocore,” knowing how to combine violence and aggression with gentleness and poetry. With Deftones, we are constantly immersed in oxymorons, and that's why we love them. Deftones are a bit like the anger of Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit mixed with the melancholy of Björk and Portishead.

For this tenth album, Deftones have revisited the recipe that made them successful. Let's not blame them, as it's extremely difficult and risky to reinvent yourself or venture into uncharted territory. Some have tried, sometimes at their own expense, like Opeth, and sometimes to broaden their audience, like Radiohead, Linkin Park, Genesis, and Yes. In short, there's nothing like that in “Private Music,” as Deftones uses the same ingredients as in their early days, minus the freshness and originality.

As you can see, we were waiting for them to slip up, and they're right there in the middle of the pack, unsurprisingly, driving at the speed limit. “My Mind is a Mountain,” “Locked Club,” and “Milk of the Madonna” do the job, and are largely on par with what Deftones do best, but unfortunately, it's just déjà vu, as is “Infinite Source,” which sounds like a self-plagiarism of a relic from their repertoire.

Private Music is an album that stays within the band's comfort zone and won't confuse fans, but that won't stop them from waiting for 'Bored', '7 Words', 'My Own Summer', 'Be Quiet' or 'Drive on stage to remind them of their rebellious adolescence. - Official website

DEFTONES

PRIVATE MUSIC

WARNER

NEO/NU METAL