Queens Of The Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

The first listen to the new Queens Of The Stone Age album I await with quivering fingers and an aching in my stomach. I really enjoyed Lullabies To Paralyze their last album, I thought it was the most significant of the Queens Of The Stone Age albums. It represents a point of change, they were evolving and the culmination of this change is Era Vulgaris. The album opens with a sensational riff on Turning On The Screw which sets you up nicely for what you will experience with the rest of the album.

When I first saw the track list I was pleased to see a favourite of mine from the Desert Sessions and the Queens live album Over The Years And Through The Woods. Make it Wit Chu which is very different from anything that they have produced before. It chugs along beautifully with a piano beat holding it together. My personal favourite has to be the Suture Up Your Future which has a moves along with a bouncing bass line in the verses and in the chorus descends into echoey guitars. You still get your churning, heavy pop tracks with 3's & 7's and Sick, Sick, Sick fitting the bill. But overall the songwriting and technical ability has upped significantly and they have allowed themselves to create a much darker and less mainstream effort where they experiment without losing their own sound. They've created an album which is without a doubt the finest of their career to date.