(Interscope)
Herald rating: * * * *
review: Russell Baillie
There's bit of a buzz on about Queens of the Stone Age as the American guitar outfit arrive at this, their major label debut. By the sounds of this, that anticipation - partly due to the band's membership connections to defunct early 90s
Californian "stoner rock" group Kyuss - is well founded. Rated R is a quite an album, a wiry, colourful collection of pop, punk, psychedelia and hard rock.
And all delivered with a chemically-addled sense of humour. Well, the riproaring opening tune Feel Good Hit of the Summer offers the tongue-tripping chant: "Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol ... " while sounding like the Ramones with sunstroke. Elsewhere it variously delivers taut Foo Fighters-like punkpop, as on The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, sprawls across the horizon on Better Living Through Chemstry (a track most reminiscent of forbears Kyuss), manages a fetching soul-rock mutation on In the Fade and ends on I Think I Lost My Headache with an attack of a stacatto horns.
They've had some help turning this into the enjoyably askew rock party, especially from the likes of former Screaming Trees Mark Lanegan (who takes the lead on In The Fade) and Barrett Martin, as well as former Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, among others, on backing vocals.
But it adds up to something vital, oddly accessible and the feeling that QOTSA are a band of substance. Weird ones, yes, but a very welcome prescription in a world of hard rock placebos.
