Our annual readers poll has now come to a close, and after hundreds of votes, we can now reveal that the winner of our ‘Best Album of 2025’ poll is:
DEFTONES – PRIVATE MUSIC
Release Date: August 22, 2025.
Label: Reprise/Warner
Length/Runtime: 42:22
Genres: Alternative Metal
Location: Sacramento, California, U.S.
FFO: Loathe, Thrice, Glassjaw, Crosses, Hum, Quicksand, Thornhill, Superheaven, Chevelle, Fleshwater.
Line-Up:
Chino Moreno – lead vocals
Stephen Carpenter – lead guitar
Abe Cunningham – drums
Frank Delgado – keyboards, turntables, samples.
Fred Sablan – bass, backing vocals.
Deftones have always defined boundless creativity in the music space. Across nine prior studio albums, they have carved out an unmistakable sonic identity – ferocious yet dreamlike, while making space for constant refinement and surprise. Now, decades on from the groove-forward sound of their era-defining debut, ‘Adrenaline’, and following a long line of masterpieces including 2000s ‘White Pony’, 2010s ‘Diamond Eyes’ and 2020s ‘Ohms’ – an album that earned them their second and third Grammy nominations – they return with one of the most focused statements of their career: ‘private music’.
Joining the band’s creative core of Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham and Frank Delgado (as well as touring bassist Fred Sablan, who appears on the album) is producer Nick Raskulinecz, who previously worked on ‘Diamond Eyes’ and 2012’s riveting ‘Koi No Yokan’. The result is a lean, masterfully paced 11-song set that plays like a new Deftones benchmark. Meditating on the beauty and peril of nature, the challenge of cultivating a positive mindset and visions of a journey beyond the physical realm, ‘private music’ showcases Deftones at their most evolved. At once a psychedelic voyage and a skull-rattling wallop, it’s the latest peak in a catalogue filled with immersive, emotive triumphs.
Stream private music here.
Deftones Online:
https://www.deftones.com/
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