Here’s the deal: ‘3s & 7s’ is an intelligent song which features the band’s trademarks biker rock riffs and some fine falsettoing by Josh Homme. So it contains the attributes that are consistent with the ever-changing line up, but in a bar brawl with any of their other tracks – even the feeble album tracks from Lullabies To Paralyze – this would be hospitalised in an instant. It’s a weak demo that somehow made it onto the album. Then was released as a single. A lead one at that. Pity.
Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on the firing of bandmate Nick Oliveri, the London bombings and his plan to disappear once their current tour is over
As we’ve come to expect, a Queens Of The Stone Age album means a slightly foreboding, twisted journey to the heart of darkness. ‘In My Head’ isn’t quite the sharp-toothed monster that their previous single ‘Little Sister’ is, but it still bears the hallmarks of a brutal yet brilliant track – manly guitars, primal drums and a slightly ominous bassline.
As we’ve come to expect, a Queens Of The Stone Age album means a slightly foreboding, twisted journey to the heart of darkness. ‘In My Head’ isn’t quite the sharp-toothed monster that their previous single ‘Little Sister’ is, but it still bears the hallmarks of a brutal yet brilliant track – manly guitars, primal drums and a slightly ominous bassline.
Spoken of in hushed, reverential tones by an entire generation of aspiring guitarslingers, QOTSA are modern-day six-string gods, utterly fluent in post-Zep/Hendrix metal, and heavily informed by a certain strain of early-‘90s stoner rock (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) though without the glum, humourless self-absorption that made most of the latter ilk such a charmless proposition.
From badass bunnies via political incorrectness to the mightiest drummer in rock ’n’ roll, it’s all in an interview’s work for Queens Of The Stone Age mainman Josh Homme.
Songs for the Deaf takes a slightly less trodden direction than it’s predecessor Rated R: still as cacophonous, rampantly bass-heavy and gut wrenching as you’d expect, but without the polish.
In a year where Miss Selfridge is flogging Motorhead t-shirts and heavy rock's most talked-about proponents are sportzmetallers with masks and vomiting fetishes, where to next? is an increasingly valid question. Tuneful, opiated and complex, Queens Of The Stone Age are looking increasingly like the answer.
