Deftones

Deftones have spent the better part of four decades proving that heaviness and beauty are not opposites but partners. Formed in Sacramento, California, in 1988 by vocalist Chino Moreno, guitarist Stephen Carpenter, and drummer Abe Cunningham, the band came up alongside a wave of alternative metal, then quietly outgrew the label by following their own restless instincts. With bassist Chi Cheng and, later, keyboardist and turntablist Frank Delgado rounding out the lineup, they built a sound that could crush and float in the same breath.

Their 1995 debut, Adrenaline, on Maverick Records, announced a group that hit hard without sounding like anyone else. Two years later, Around the Fur sharpened everything: "My Own Summer (Shove It)" and "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" became cornerstones, the first a coiled, blown-out riff machine, the second a hypnotic drift that showed how much tenderness lived inside the distortion. Carpenter's downtuned guitars and Moreno's voice, capable of a soft tenor croon and a throat-tearing scream in the span of a single line, became the band's signature tension.

Then came White Pony in 2000, the record that turned a great band into an essential one. "Change (In the House of Flies)" is its emotional center, a slow, shimmering, dread-soaked anthem that remains one of the most recognizable songs in the band's catalog. White Pony pushed dream-pop atmosphere and electronic texture into music that still landed like a body blow, and it has only grown in stature since. The self-titled album followed in 2003, and across the years the band kept reaching: "Cherry Waves," from 2006's Saturday Night Wrist, is a perfect example of their gift for melody, a song that washes over you before its weight sets in.

What is remarkable is how consistent the second half of their story has been. Diamond Eyes (2010), Koi No Yokan (2012), Gore (2016), and Ohms (2020) each arrived to acclaim, deepening the band's vocabulary without ever repeating it. Few groups this far into a career sound this alive, this curious about what their own music can still do.

That momentum carries straight into Private Music, released in August 2025 through Reprise and Warner. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz, who also helmed Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan, it was led by the single "My Mind Is a Mountain," a track Carpenter has openly tied to the lineage of "Change." The album met widespread critical acclaim and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album, a reminder that Deftones are not coasting on legacy but adding to it. "My Mind Is a Mountain" sits comfortably next to their classics: patient, enormous, and emotionally raw.

To hear Deftones is to hear a band that never settled for one mode. They make music that is loud and intimate, abrasive and gorgeous, built for both the mosh pit and the headphones at 2 a.m. Thirty years in, they are still chasing that feeling, and still catching it.