Queens of the stone age — Songs for the deaf

Born in the shadow of the legendary Kyuss, QOTSA have acquired a place of their own since they released their first album. With Songs for the deaf, they now belong to another league...

Two years after Rated R, the Californian queens are back with a new line-up and a bunch of great songs, proving that, no, rock ‘n’ roll is not dead and that, no, its future doesn’t lie in the hands of The Strokes and The White Stripes. I’ve never been much of a Nirvana fan but it has to be said that Dave Grohl and his drumming shines through the whole album, and so does Mark Lanegan vocals (Screaming Trees). But let not the guests stand in your way when it comes to appreciate the work of the two men behind QOTSA, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveiri. Homme's vocals are as good as they get and his relentless riffing is bound to make you head shake.

It’s hard to point out what makes of this record such an excellent album... After all, the elements combined in QOTSA have been heard before, somewhere else. Maybe it’s Grohl’s drum dirge, maybe the rock riffs played by a metal band (or the other way round), maybe the vocal melodies, maybe it’s all these things that make the difference between bad copyists of past glories and this bunch of blokes... The answer is not easy to find, one can only say that it works.

Now listen to the first three songs, then to Hanging tree, Go with the flow, Gonna leave you, Do it again and, if you’re lucky enough to have the limited edition, end with Mosquito song. After having done that, come and tell me where you have heard better songs this year... Come and tell me that Kyuss were better... They’re not playing the same sort of music, they’re not in the same league, it’s 2002, not 1992 so...please, will ya?

Strange how things go, it seems that a trend has developed around QOTSA, their European tour is now sold-out almost everywhere (and I’m one of the silly fuckers without tickets...gonna have to pay a visit to the touts) but there is no doubt that it won’t last much (too many Coldplay fans I know have bought the album for this to be a long lasting hype) so let’s just hope that this sort of success is not gonna break them.

Stoner-Rock, Desert-Rock, what the fuck? This is Rock. At its best.