I don’t care what anyone says, this album is freaking awesome. The trio of Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones was doomed to fail to live up to expectations, but it hasn’t.
“But it’s just a watered down Queens of the Stoneage record!” I hear Homme’s supporters cry. “It doesn’t have the hooks of the Foo Fighters!” Grohl’s southern-cross tattooed fans whinge, and you know what? They’re right.
If you’re listening for QOTSA, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re listening for the Foo Fighters, you’re going to be confused. Here is not where the genius of this record lies. The genius lies in the arrangements that John Paul Jones has laid down like train tracks for Grohl and Homme to roll right in and do their thing.
Fucked up time signatures are one thing, but when a zillion things at once piece together as beautifully as the opener ‘No One Loves Me And Neither Do I’, the ballsy stoner-haze of ‘Elephants’ or the Stevie Wonder infused groove of ‘Scumbag Blues’ it becomes a true work of legendary proportions.
Dave Grohl is a killer drummer as well, as proven on his post-Nirvana work. While he reinvented himself as a meat-headed proponent of big, dumb, easy-to-digest rock-by-numbers, he beat the absolute crap out of the skins in a stunning display of driving rhythm on Killing Joke’s ‘The Death and Resurrection Show’, NIN’s ‘With Teeth’ and even drumming with the Foo Fighters whilst playing with David Bowie and it is this powerful drumming that drives this record, but it is John Paul Jones that takes the two great players and turns it into something more.
Regardless of each member’s history, what matters is that this riff-laden album will blow your freaking head off, if you can get past the fact that IT IS NOT THE FOO FIGHTERS AND IT IS NOT QUEENS OF THE STONEAGE.
Track Listing
No One Loves Me And Neither Do I
Mind Eraser, No Chaser
New Fang
Dead End Friends
Elephants
Scumbag Blues
Bandoilers
Reptiles
Interlude With Ludes
Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up
Caligulove
Gunman
Spinning In Daffodils
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