Review by: John Robb of playlouder.com
They stand there impassive. This psychedelic maelstrom needs some mean concentration; only fork-bearded bassman Nick Oliveri gives it any movement and he's at one with his bass, grinding out the bowel-shaking back end of the Queens' awesome sound, while main vocalist Josh Homme stares maniacally into the fug and sings sweetly over the brawling undertow. QOTSA don't play by the rules and it sounds incredible.
There is an innate, malevolent power and a curdling menace that's always held in check. This is one mighty bitch of a rock band, perhaps one of the best on the planet right now - they are wandering terrain that most bands dream of. So few bands have managed to join these disparate musical strands and not make a hideous drippy hippy mess, so few bands keep it this tight...
And that's why Queens Of the Stone Age are one of the best rock bands in the world right now, they don't fit in anywhere. At all. They are not nu-metal or flavour of the month inkie lightweights, this is one mutha fukka of desert jam that has just sprawled out over the world stages. They may have a sniff of prog, but they also combine the freeform guitar gunk of prime time Black Flag with the jack hammer hard rhythm section of prime post punk with a psychedelic freak out. The Queens are operating on so many fantastic levels at once. Somehow they also manage to squash in some great tunes into this style car crash. 'Feel Good Hit Of the Summer' is a monster, a brutal stomp and blows the venue apart... they raid 'Rated R' for a fistful of freak anthems and rip them up.
Few bands have come this way and made it work, few bands have had the discipline to enter into the bad acid heartland and come out alive. But somehow, crazily, eerily, the Queens just sound all the better for it. Very much working their own agenda, their third album which they start recording this summer is going to be a signpost, a way out for hard rock, another mental place to visit, another twist in this mad parade.
|
