Put simply, Them Crooked Vultures sound like Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and Nirvana, and of course, Led Zeppelin. Not a bad combination really. This supergroup, made up of Led Zep's bass player and keyboardist John Paul Jones, the Foo's Dave Grohl ondrums, and singer-guitarist Josh Homme of Queens, got together earlier this year, announced a world tour, and then the release of this album.
It's Homme, the least famous of the three, who dominates with his mangled take on rock'n'roll, which is full of heavy melodic riffs, and that sweet but spaced-out voice seeping through.
Yet there's no denying Grohl and Jones' contribution. The former, with his lucid hammering style, is one of the best drummers around, and is straight to the fore on opening chugger
warp effortlessly from a sluggish and dingy groove into something crisp and majestic. Another highlight is the debauched carnie discord of
Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take
, which touches on the desert psychosis rock of Queens as it sprawls out across seven minutes. Lyrically, Homme comes up with some of his best and most twisted lines from "catching tigers by the tail" on
