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So stoked for this. Haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, but I'm on pins and needles. Mark Ronson is a really interesting choice for a producer. Obviously he's cut his teeth on pop music and DJ-type stuff, but Uptown Special is really a hell of a record,. He obviously knows his way around quite a few styles of music including '70s-influenced guitar rock, which isn't totally foreign to QOTSA.
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Jun 14, 2017 20:35
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Clyfe posted:Calling it now, this Album will be nowhere near as dark as "Like Clockwork"...Josh was a cheery hot mess the last time I saw him. I sure hope not, I don't think I could take another one that dark. I'd start worrying. I mean, there's darker stuff out there, but it means more when it's coming from someone who usually keeps it lighter. Of course, the first time I ever listened to it was the day after my then-fiancee left for a 10-week internship in Arizona, so I was definitely in the "right" place emotionally for the album to really hit me. (Although a few weeks later, I finally experienced the joy of listening to Songs For The Deaf on a road trip through the desert.) It took me a while to fully appreciate Like Clockwork, and it still doesn't get as much play as anything from the first 3 albums, but it was definitely a success in my book. I think it's the album that finally got me to really accept that they're never going to make another Songs For The Deaf, and that QOTSA at this point is basically whatever Josh Homme wants it to be. The old sound is still there in small doses on tracks like "My god is the Sun" and "I Appear Missing", but I don't suppose it would be possible or even good if they made a whole album in that style again. In retrospect I think the album that's aged least well is Era Vulgaris; I still consider it a better album than Lullabies To Paralyze, which was somewhat bloated, but something about the lo-fi aesthetic of it often turns me off from wanting to listen to it. I think Them Crooked Vultures ultimately turned out to be a better version of what they were going for. (Although I personally like to tack on the bonus tracks "Fun Machine" and "Running Joke" which helps it quite a bit.) Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jun 15, 2017 |
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Jun 15, 2017 13:45
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Seems likely, as virtually every QOTSA album has included songs that appeared previously in other forms. (Clockwork perhaps being the only exception.)
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Jun 15, 2017 15:24
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Wasn't sure what to expect when I heard it was a pretty poppy song, but I really like it. At the very least, I'll take it over "Little Sister" any day. Definitely walks a fine line between rock and pop, from a production standpoint. I think it's right on the line, though I understand why some wouldn't see it that way. I think what does it for me is that despite the pop veneer, there's a lot of guitar (and bass) work and you can hear it all very distinctly. It's not the indistinct glossy mush that I associate with "bad" pop.
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Jun 16, 2017 01:30
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vandalism posted:Josh and Nick Oliveri are ok again I think. Will he ever team up with John Garcia again, though? Only time will tell. Kyuss was so fuckin good. I think at this point the rift between him and John is a bigger deal than the Nick thing, which from the sound of things was basically over by the end of 2005. I recall Nick saying positive things about Era Vulgaris, and of course then he ended up doing a guest spot on Like Clockwork, which in typical QOTSA fashion was basically inaudible.
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Jun 16, 2017 13:33
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I do wonder what it must've felt like when Rated R came out, it was really a massive detour from the much more straightforward, unpolished rock sound of the self-titled album. All the other stylistic shifts they've done almost look safe by comparison.
Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 19, 2017 |
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Jun 19, 2017 15:01
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It's kinda weird that Nick is only full-time on less than 1/3 of the band's albums now. (I'm assuming he's not on the new one...)
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Jun 19, 2017 16:17
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QOTSA just shared this video on Facebook. Has about 30 seconds of a new song clip I haven't heard before. Good stuff. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1879924032023305&id=615085188507202
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Jun 30, 2017 17:59
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Zanael posted:My hype levels are on the moon right now. Infinity and Born To Hula are some of my favorite tracks they've ever done, and I don't mind that they're not on an album because they don't feel like they'd belong to any, they're just their own things. Incidentally, the re-recording of Infinity, which was on some reissues of Lullabies, is awful. In an effort to make it new & different they pretty much changed all the cool parts. On the other hand, I vastly prefer the revamped Born To Hula.
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Jul 1, 2017 02:20
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I vaguely remember seeing this video a while ago. It just popped up in my YouTube feed and it makes so much more sense now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA0XnE8QXpI
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Jul 21, 2017 01:51
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overnightmike posted:Despite how compressed the advance stuff sounds, I like how Mark Ronson's production has separated the bass from the guitar for the first time since Oliveri's tenure. I know that even then, much of the bass was handled by Homme, and I've felt for a while that bass was his weak point as a player. Sky Valley is my favorite Kyuss album because Scott Reeder's slippery hippie-metalhead basslines are a counterpoint to Homme's more monolithic style. I haven't heard the non-singles yet, but so far I agree. I really like how distinct the guitar is from the bass. Of course, I tend to prefer dry mixes generally. I think what some are objecting to is how there's not really much sense of "space" or ambience. Again, very dry. No muddiness. But I've always preferred SFTD to the self-titled, and SFTD is super dry. (They even recorded the cymbals separately.) I actually don't think it's very compressed, it sounds pretty dynamic to my ears. Lots of breathing room. I think maybe the guitar tone itself is a little more compressed than usual, or at least has less low end.
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Aug 11, 2017 19:01
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So it turns out some vinyl pressings of the new album by Gordi got one side of Villains by mistake: http://pitchfork.com/news/queens-of-the-stone-age-songs-accidentally-appear-on-new-gordi-vinyl/
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Aug 18, 2017 11:47
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I don't think that's too controversial, last I checked Lullabies is generally regarded as their most uneven album. It certainly faced heightened scrutiny coming on the heels of SFTD, and the whole thing with Nick being fired.
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Aug 18, 2017 21:51
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I've got mixed feelings after my first listen, but, well, it's a first listen. It's definitely not quite the "fun", upbeat, "rock isn't dead" counterpart to Like Clockwork that I was expecting. Fortress, Hideaway, Villains of Circumstance, and to a lesser extent Un-Reborn Again are all surprisingly atmospheric and midtempo without many memorable guitar riffs. Maybe they'll become memorable later. I guess The Evil Has Landed set a really high standard.
Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Aug 26, 2017 |
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Aug 26, 2017 02:50
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I've identified my main sticking point with the album, and it's somewhere between "Un-Reborn Again" and "Hideaway". I absolutely love the creepy synth groove that Un-Reborn starts with, but it loses me at the chorus; not the "You can be young again" part, but the other part that repeats over and over till the end of the song. There's not enough interesting going on instrumentally or rhythmically and it kind of feels like Homme on autopilot. (Not the song Autopilot.). And Hideaway pretty much picks up that same rhythm and feel and drags it out even longer. I think if they spent less time on that part of Un-Reborn and put a whole different song after it, the album would fare much better for me. I personally don't fault the production though. I can't imagine any of the songs sounding better with different production. I think my issues are more with the songwriting. Laserface posted:Feet dont Fail Me Now is a fantastic song ruined by a long and quiet and pointless intro. Nah the intro makes it better. You can always just pretend the intro is track 1 and it's a 10-track album.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:32
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I'm more or less repeating myself but I just listened to the album again, and I'm really becoming further convinced that inserting an upbeat track between Un-Reborn and Hideaway would make a big difference. (And hit that magic number of 10 tracks.) I kinda wish there were a B-side floating around somewhere so I could slot it in there myself, but that doesn't seem likely this time around, unfortunately.
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Aug 28, 2017 20:59
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I will say even though I criticized the songwriting earlier, as a whole I agree, in the sense that the song structures are extremely well-considered. There's no lazy repetition, although the last stretch of "Un-Reborn Again" borders on it. But even on a song as basic as "The Way You Used To Do", there's something slightly different every time a chorus, verse, or refrain is repeated. That's what sets great songwriters apart from the rest. (The Beatles were especially good at it.) But what I am missing a bit are more memorable melodies and more interesting guitar riffs & drum fills. Again, the 2 singles had these in spades, so I was expecting more. There are just a few too many parts where it sort of dissolves into indistinct strumming & tapping.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:10
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I assumed  I was thinking the other day, we fans might as well go ahead and christen Them Crooked Vultures the 6th QOTSA album, if that wasn't already clear. It "sounds like QOTSA" at least as much as this album does. The only thing that separates it is I guess John Paul Jones didn't feel like being called a Queen or something?
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Sep 2, 2017 20:36
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Era Vulgaris is an oddball. In some ways I felt like it was a good course correction after Lullabies, and I really like what it's going for 90% of the time, but in the end it just... Doesn't have legs? Something about it never completely clicks. I do think it fares better if you toss in "Fun Machine" and "Running Joke". The latter at the end after "Run Pig Run". The former, not sure where. Maybe after "Make It Wit Chu".
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Sep 8, 2017 13:46
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Speaking of, is there ever going to be another DS album? I miss those. My guess is that moment has passed, as I get the feeling that most of the people involved have kind of grown apart (not in a "personal animosity" sense, just moved onto different things). It'd be pretty hard to get that same spirit back. But never say never, I suppose. There are parts of the Sound City soundtrack that are a little bit Desert Sessions-y, so that's definitely something to check out if you haven't. It's basically Dave Grohl's version of DS. It has 4 songs that very heavily feature Josh Homme and/or Alain Johannes and/or Chris Goss. "Centipede" in particular is the most Desert Sessions-y thing I've heard in ages. The rest of it is much closer to Foo Fighters, but it's pretty solid all around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4L_OQOZsk
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Sep 8, 2017 16:20
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Yeah I forgot how I obtained that one TBH. Great track though, really feels like a natural ending to the album, along with providing a nice callback to the "hidden ending" of Lullabies.
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Sep 8, 2017 17:11
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I don't know who first put the idea in my head, but I'll always wish Into The Hollow was a Mark Lanegan guest vocal.
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Sep 8, 2017 18:23
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Yeah he's been worrying me lately. Some of his interviews have been making it sound like he thinks he's too good for sobriety even though he very nearly lost his life due to too much garbage being in his system a few years back. I don't like to judge the major life decisions of people I don't know, and not all people need to address their addiction issues by going cold turkey. I don't wanna act like one close call disqualifies him and now he has to be sober as some sort of penance. But if he's gonna do crap like this, he is obviously not really facing up to his issues seriously. I believe him when he says he didn't realize he was doing it. That's what makes it scary.
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Dec 11, 2017 02:12
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Yeah, the initial statement reads like "we have to get in front of this thing quick" and the video apology is more like Josh had a chance to sit down and watch the video of what happened over and over until it made him sick. Which is what needed to happen. Change whatever you have to change to make this right, man 
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Dec 11, 2017 12:27
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DLC Inc posted:idk how you can have like 3 kids and still be getting so hosed up you kick a cameraperson in the face and then cut your forehead open at your own show. TBH everyone who has kids has felt like doing that at least once Still no excuse though.
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Dec 14, 2017 17:30
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Black Bones posted:lol some of you guys have weird expectations of rock musicians. Oh no Mel Gibson is abusive and racist *sobs as he snaps his Mad Max dvds in half* It's not so much expectations as I don't want him to kill himself. He's obviously crying for help, including but not limited to making a video saying he needs to get help. So yeah, I want him to get help.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:22
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Black Bones posted:He's not going to off himself. The band isn't breaking up or being banned or whatever. He has a temper and poor impulse control sometimes, this is like his 3rd or 4th assault and not even the worst of them. There's a difference between getting a little belligerent and being so slobbering drunk/stoned/whatever onstage that you kick a fan in the face for no reason and don't even realize it until someone shows you a video. Also we're talking about a guy who was literally dead once because he had too much crap in his system. This is not normal or admirable. I didn't care about him getting into fist fights with other bands or whatever, but this is different. I'm glad your crystal ball says he's gonna be fine, but I'm just calling it like I see it. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 12:41
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