Album Review: Queens Of The Stone Age - Villains

21 August 2017 | 5:32 pm | Chris Familton

"'Villains' eschews the slow and shadowy songs, instead going straight for the hips."

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Villains comes at the point where Queens Of The Stone Age have a fanbase who have grown with them, and accept and delight in Josh Homme's darker, moodier excursions equally as much as they pine for the heavy, stoner fuzz-rock.

For the most part, Villains eschews the slow and shadowy songs, instead going straight for the hips with a kind of glam-boogie, rock sound.

With Mark Ronson producing, they've clearly focused on rhythm and groove, pulling in funk elements and colouring them with effect-laden guitars and hand claps - Homme less in crooner mode and more embracing his inner pop strut. But that isn't to say it doesn't rock. The last minute of The Evil Has Landed is prime QOTSA riffage, a straightening of their sound that jolts the listener back to an almost nostalgic place. The way the band have arranged these songs is testament to their ability to add thrilling and complex details to their music. Countermelodies constantly splinter off and collide with one another as the rhythm section tumbles on like a musical robot gone AWOL.

Villains is bereft of the couple of top-shelf songs it would need to be up there with QOTSA's best albums, but for the most part they've produced a fascinating and dizzying prog-rock collision of Devo, ZZ Top and Bowie.

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