In Times New Roman…
Album by Queens of the Stone Age
Released 16 June 2023
Alternative Rock / Stoner Rock
Label – Matador
Rating – 7/10
Return of the stoner.
–
Historically, there are few rock bands as visceral or bulging as Queens of the Stone Age. Their classics – Rated R, Songs for the Deaf – propelled the desert swamps laid out by predecessor Kyuss, opening themselves up as large-fisted hunks that could supply intuitive songwriting – No One Knows, Go With the Flow – and intestinal noisiness.
The past ten years have been a little different. Like Clockwork – the band’s first on Matador – would up the already-established songwriting chops, sounding a little cleaner without dialling back the muck too much, peaking the balance of both of the band’s slickest attributes. Follow-up Villains is one most would rather forget; too clean if not for scraps of fuzz, though its emphasis on literate composition would leave us with a few songs to take away – it’s fine, but Like Clockwork it ain’t.
In Times New Roman is Queens of the Stone Age’s third, and likely final, release on Matador. What kind of balance does the band’s eighth album strike up? Well, it sounds great. Primarily produced solely by the band, its level of production design is akin to older records. It isn’t as calamitous as a classic, but laughs at Villains, overcoming its own songwriting stinginess.
There’s a portion, early on in the tracklist, in which the songs appear supremely underwritten. Negative Space stands in defiance of memorability, outside of its enticing bridge, mostly loaded with groans that Bowie would’ve rejected. Time & Place rinses and repeats, other than the moments that remind me of Radiohead’s Bodysnatchers.
A few mumbling stoppages can be forgiven; “life” got in the way of the album’s recording, potentially marring its creative input. Queens seldom skimp on their energy, swinging the > in favour of their organic grooves, wickedly-so as the scraping guitars of Emotion Sickness sound as much like a series of knife edges as they do rock n roll.
Made to Parade is a march to Hell, akin to Burn the Witch with similar injections of life granted by the essentialism of Josh Homme’s voice; half-libido, half-Universal movie monster. Like a dictator, his lyrics shoot with command-like snapshots, blaring “kneel and bow, take your licks, you gotta swallow your pride” like a dance routine for neurotics. The bustle of its low-end guitars is eternally destructive, a setting revisited on whopping closing track Straight Jacket Fitting, for the bulk of its supermassive runtime.
Paper Machete is all sex, perspiring with pressure cooker bass fuzz and falsetto vocalisations. The song is more in tune with recent QOTSA – as is What the Peephole Say, like one of Villains’ faster album tracks, see Head Like a Haunted House – but is hardly without the soul of old. A squelching guitar riff forms the many ripples of Obscenery. A saw of fuzz strikes its chorus, a depth to counter Homme’s magic falsetto, uniting beside a Glass Onion-style upswing in orchestra.
Orchestra is also Sicily’s order, containing a makeshift, artificial symphony that uncannily forms a combination of compositional mastery and fiery sound design. Carnavoyeur – okay, some of these song titles are too ridiculous – rewards itself similarly, producing some kind of stretching effect to kick the song off and guide it into its atmospheric chord patterns reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Breathe.
But as I say, the scales are tipped by the album’s expressive production, capturing its “we’re all doomed” lyrical themes. In Times New Roman is a sweltering return for Queens of the Stone Age; it isn’t a classic, nor is it a nostalgia trip, but it sounds enough like either to merit its inclusion in one of modern rock’s best discographies.
Best tracks – Paper Machete – Made to Parade.
Weakest track – Time & Place.
Rating – 7 out of 10
PEANUTBUTTERPOPE 