Queens of the Stone Age
Perfecth
MATADOR
Now that audiences have settled into the fact that Queens of the Stone Age aren’t going to remake the pugnacious stoner rock of Rated R or art metal of Songs for the Deaf anytime soon, their main man Josh Homme is likely better for the revelation. At the very least, he sounds more at ease—more at one with the even keel—while singing becalmed bon mots like “You drive me crazy, but I can do that myself” through a mix of strummy acoustic guitars, spiraling Frippertronics, and Nikki Lane’s high vocals on the lost-youth paean “Easy Street,” as if he was sitting before his pool drinking skinny vodka. Homme gave at the office at the top of the 21st century, and gave it hard. You can’t blame him for chilling on Perfecth.
Besides, Homme’s last decade has been one truly rough paper route. Divorce, child custody trials, and cancer diagnoses will do this to a guy—it’ll cold press the paranoia, make a man ruminative, more relaxed-fit. Listen to him hanging at the cooled heels of tinkle-pumped Fender Rhodes and electric Supertramp licks on “Insignificant Other,” or brooding through old-boy Californian laments such as the beachy “From the Cliff.” Even the avant spindrift of “Mono” seems tamped-down, moderate, and pressure-free. That’s fine.
And just in case you needed the agitation, Homme has a few catty jokes and minorly crunchy guitars up for grabs with “Where the Goth Girls At?” and “Sunday,” even if he did have to borrow the latter from his own canon (with Iggy Pop) to get from there to here, all while keeping Dave Grohl—another rager forced to mature overnight—on a tight leash. We really don’t need Homme to do the undulating-skuzzball/Gregorian-chant/snake-bite rawk of “Song for the Deaf” any longer (and if we do, that’s why God created deluxe anniversary editions). So thank you, Josh Homme, for just being you, even if it is minus some edge. We’ll all live longer.
