a couple of weeks ago i gave the new single, or were they download only tracks, that have been released from the forthcoming queens of the stone age, era vulgaris album a bit of grief.

as is often the way with the qotsa material, a few more spins, and the tunes often become totally essential.

this is precisely is what has happened now that i have the whole 55 minute album to digest.

for this album, josh and his production sidekick, chris goss have dropped a lot of the meandering excess that the previous album drifted into, and come up with a superb slice of hard hitting melody strong modern rock.

if you have heard any of the bands previous material, then you’ll know that the band (ie josh really) has a way to one minute hammer your head with grinding riffs, only for a few seconds later soothe and caress with a harmony and instrumental lift that just melts away the pain of the earlier noise, and its these moments of aural perfection that makes the schizophrenic nature of the music so fascinating and different to most other rock music currently doing the  rounds.

thankfully, this skill of mixing the heaviosity and the perfect pop song is often evident throughout the 13 tracks on this excellent album. all the usual qotsa elements are in place, the love of dirty sludge filled production, out of which clean beautiful guitar lines are picked out and allowed to shine (the mess that is battery acid being the prime example), the straight up love for a heart stopping melody, a little bit of glam here, a lot of rock-n-roll boogie there, and even a few sideway grins towards previous classics (is that a nirvana riff i hear opening 3’s and 7’s ?).

if you enjoyed any of the bands earlier releases ,then this is not going to disappoint, despite not really going anywhere new, the music is always fresh with some interesting production tweaks for those that drop this on the headphones. i suspect that the studio time with new mates, unkle, has rubbed off in some way.

a solid album that will become a firm favourite as per normal for a queens of the stone age album basically.

 

more detail : here