Queens Of The Stone: Age Lullabies To Paralyze

Herald rating: * * *

Menace. It's an essential element in Queens of the Stone Age music. That element is still well and truly intact on their fourth album, but the venom - an ingredient usually supplied by the bald, bearded, and sometimes naked bass player Nick Oliveri - was just as essential.

Last year, band leader Josh Homme got tired of Oliveri's wild, and often destructive ways and kicked his friend out of the band. Unfortunately - and, hey, maybe Homme had to do it for his own sanity - Oliveri's venom is what Lullabies to Paralyze lacks. And as far as a personal venting session goes, Homme's ranting on Everybody Knows That You're Insane makes it the worst song Queens have done. That aside, this is not a bad album - it's just that it's good, not excellent, compared with 1998's self-titled album, 2000's Rated R and 2003's Songs For the Deaf.

QOTSA are the best band to emerge from the United States in the past five years. Homme is a rock music revolutionary - albeit one who hasn't received the recognition he should have - and Queens are just so damn gutsy.

When songs like Tangled Up In Plaid, or the glorious The Blood Is Love, launch into grooves-from-hell that could only be Queens of the Stone Age, that's when you feel this band is one of the best bands, if not the best band, in the world.

In My Head, the best track from Lullabies ... , has that irresistible hook and high-pitched sing-a-long chorus that makes you proud to be singing a rock song. Homme has always been a dirty little so-and-so and Skin On Skin is his own downright-dirty kama sutra. Lullabies ... also has one of the most beautiful songs of the year, so far, the ballad I Never Came. Some might call it soppy, but Homme is 200cm tall and built like a brick shit-house, so beautiful is probably the safer description. For a behemoth he has the most romantic and sweet voice when he's singing at near-falsetto.

It's weird giving this album a mediocre rating then suggesting you buy it. It's worth it, but compared with their other albums it has bland patches. You want to be throttled by a QOTSA album, not sedated.


Label: Universal