Pitchfork

Self-proclaimed prehistoric royalty Queens of the Stone Age are back from the desert wastes of California, and they're putting the 'rock' back in 'blowing shit up' (in a healthy, non-terrorist kind of way). Now, it's no secret that, when it comes to rock's metal edge, these Queens want badly to be kings; you need look no further for proof than 2000's blistering, thuggish Rated R, on which frontman Josh Homme's searing guitars and theatrical vocals brought the band close enough to their goal to sniff the fleurs de lis. That, however, is history, and with Songs for the Deaf, the Queens have hit a new peak in their development: the sound is more massive, the chaos is more calculated, and with hired gun Dave Grohl at the kit, the band has an unprecedented drive that leaves them poised for their strongest bid for power yet.

"You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" embodies the greatest strengths of rock at its hardest-- stunning riffs, breakneck speed, and guitars that churn and spit like a threshing machine. It's riddled with decades-old metal cliches, but the Queens know what their audience expects, and they use this knowledge to continually twist rock stereotypes into a vicious full-nelson until they beg for mercy. It's fantastic, and this is just the first track.

"No One Knows" changes Songs for the Deaf's pace by sliding into an easy groove, sleazing its way across a dimly-lit bar, half-drunk and reeking of cheap cologne, to put the moves on your girlfriend (or, you know, you, depending). This is four-to-the-floor slime of the highest quality, folks, and it's the second installment in this album's triad of genius, completed subsequently by the next track, "First It Giveth". "Giveth" brings the drama like a champ, with Homme singing in pained falsetto over punishing riffs during the verses, and opening up into aggro-overdrive for the appropriately apocalyptic chorus.

But along the path to greatness, there are pitfalls, and one Homme often falls into here is the old "chamber of lost souls" effect (made popular by Alice in Chains on some of their later albums), which he uses to fill out the backgrounds of some of these songs. The multitracked Hommes aaah'ing melodramatically in undead unison make slogging through "Hanging Tree" and "Go with the Flow" a pretty grim endeavor. It doesn't help that these songs churn along interminably long after their riffs have run dry, either. And worse still, the band has quit winking at their metal excesses entirely, toeing the line between mindless fun and xFC-metal gothery. Fortunately, this is only a temporary decline, but that these two tracks hit back-to-back in the dead center of the record makes for a much steeper dropoff than if they'd been sequenced farther apart.

There's also the issue of the between-song skits. As skits go, these are pretty tame, but that doesn't make them any less obtrusive. The album even opens with one: the sign-on of KLON (that's "clone") radio, "the station that sounds more like everybody else than anybody else." It's a broad parody of the Clear Channel wavelength empire, and while admittedly pretty fucking funny, the target is a bit obvious-- especially given that PS2's "Grand Theft Auto III" beat them to the punch two years ago and pulled it off expertly. My biggest problem with these interruptions, though, is that they do little for the aggregate effect of the album-- after a couple playthroughs, they only serve to stifle the momentum QOTSA manage to develop.

Yet, this same biting cleverness also pervades many of the songs, lending an air of spontaneity and plain good times-- there's a fake stop in one of the early tracks that's so ludicrous I laughed out loud. And there are even better moments to be had elsewhere: the wavering surf guitar on "Another Love Song", or the good old-fashioned brain-sickness of "Six Shooter" and "Mosquito Song," the latter played lovingly by what sounds like the orchestra of the damned.

When these guys are on, it truly is the wrath of the righteous. However, Songs for the Deaf vacillates constantly between soaring heights and mind-numbing lows, making for a true hit-or-miss affair. But even if they can't have it all, the guys do offer as real a showcase of metal-tinged panache and stellar songwriting as anyone might hope for from a band labeled 'stoner-rock.' Besides, if the entire album was as strong as the first three tracks, it'd probably burn you alive. As it stands, Queens of the Stone Age settle for attempted murder. And that ain't bad at all.