Deftones frontman Chino Moreno has managed to raise excitement about the band’s new record, saying it sounds similar to 2000’s White Pony.

Back in the ’90s, Californian rockers Deftones were a band on the rise. Having released brilliant records like Adrenaline and Around The Fur, it was 2000’s White Pony that well and truly put them on the map.

Hitting #2 on the Aussie charts, featuring vocals from Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, and spawning the sunning ‘Change (In the House of Flies)’, the record was well and truly enough for Deftones to break into the mainstream.

Now, almost two decades later, it seems that the band are returning to the sound of this highly-acclaimed sound.

Currently working on a follow-up to 2016’s Gore, Deftones have shared a few updates about the recording process, revealing that their new record is likely set to be released in 2019.

Now, frontman Chino Moreno has spoken to Kerrang! (via The PRP) to discuss their new album, while opening up in regards to where the band are headed in the future.

“That’s a good question, I don’t know, and it’s hard to say,” Moreno began. “Where we are with our writing process right now, it’s really difficult for me to put a single look on what we’re doing. It’s morphing every day that we get together and write.”

“We’re definitely getting into experimental sort of modes, which is the funnest phase that we get into. One of the biggest records in our career is obviously White Pony, and it’s our most commercially successful record as well, but that was also one of our most experimental records, especially for the time when it came out.”

“That record, making it was… what’s a good word to describe it? We felt really free.”

“We basically made whatever we liked, whatever was happening at that moment,” he continued. “It didn’t really go along with what was going on around us, as far as our contemporaries and where other music was.”

Check out Deftones’ ‘Digital Bath’:

As the interview continued, Chino Moreno also touched upon whether White Pony was something of a reaction to the nu-metal scene, which was quickly gaining traction around the time of the record’s release.

“Well, at the time, honestly, with bands like Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach and what was to be coined nü-metal or whatever, that was at its height,” Moreno began. “And we probably made our most un-nü-metal record. I don’t know why we did it. Like I said, we were into experimenting more than we were trying to do something that we felt we already did.”

“That’s why it’s hard to answer the question about the future and what comes next. But if anything I would say that [I’m reminded of] White Pony, that record in general, because it was probably us at our most experimental.”

While it remains to be seen when Deftones’ ninth album will finally be released, fans are undoubtedly getting eager to hear this new piece of work, which is shaping up to be reminiscent of their commercial breakthrough.

Check out Deftones’ ‘Change (In The House Of Flies)’: