Queens of the Stone Age

I journey through the desert

Of the mind with no hope

I follow

A car speeds along a road that cuts the Californian desert in two. We seem to hear the steady roar of the engine, to feel the fine sand spinning in the wheel rims and kicking up clouds that scatter across the scorched landscape framed by the rearview mirror. Every so often, a radio voice bursts out of the stereo speakers, rising up as the last, remote outpost of a humanity that has never felt so distant, as we too cross this seemingly lifeless expanse, relentlessly beaten down by the sun.

While it's true that "Songs For The Deaf" isn't, strictly speaking, a concept album — as Josh Homme has explained on more than one occasion — it's equally true that the setting in which the songs come to life has never been more precise. The road trip across the Californian desert is, at bottom, nothing more than a clever device, a small but shrewd variation on a theme that Homme himself, alongside Nick Oliveri, had already been exploring for well over a decade with Kyuss and then with Queens Of The Stone Age, and not only there. A not-insignificant part of the record's material, cut between October 2001 (right after the attack on the Twin Towers) and June 2002 between San Rafael and Hollywood with producer Eric Valentine, actually originates from The Desert Sessions, the project Homme founded in 1997 that brings together numerous notable names from the Western music scene. Some of these tracks had even already been played live, albeit in their original form.

Convinced both of the strength of the ideas at hand and of the potential to improve on them further, Homme assembles another dream team. Not only does he bring back Mark Lanegan, already featured on the side project (and by now perfectly at home as the ever-present guest on other people's albums), but he also manages — again, with remarkable ease, it must be said — to convince Dave Grohl to sit back down behind the cymbals and drums like old times, forcing work on the new Foo Fighters album ("One By One", ed.) to be pushed back by a few months.

Much has been said about Dave Grohl's drumming on "Songs For The Deaf", not only because of the sheer "historic" weight of the event, but also for the touch the former Nirvana man brought to the songs, helping turn the album into what it is — quite possibly the finest testament to the American alt-rock scene of the new millennium. The frenzy and sense of unease running through the record, pushing stoner rock toward new frontiers, rest on solid foundations: the drums' relentless hammering and the acid-etched riffs that stubbornly keep the beat. No less important are the vocal lines: just turn the car's engine on and you'll find Oliveri utterly transfigured on "You Think I Ain't A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire", a strange cross between Californian hardcore and hard rock, complete with a motorik intro courtesy of Grohl.

We're firmly in stoner rock territory here, and yet it's clear from the outset that the band intends to push the machine well past its limits. If there's one word that fits "Songs For The Deaf" perfectly, it's excess. In intent, in form, in content. There's so much material packed into the tracklist that it feels like touching a red-hot rock. The verses of "First It Giveth" are punctuated by relentless snare hits and open up into a decidedly heavy chorus. That same word also applies to the overwhelming intro (and its closing twin) of "Song For The Dead", embellished by Lanegan's ailing voice, which seems to echo away into endless valleys — with no way out. It's one of the structurally most complex tracks, with its psychedelic solos, sudden pauses and restarts, and abrupt tempo shifts.

The distorted guitars of "The Sky Is Fallin'" are, on the other hand, pure stoner through and through, and set the stage for what is perhaps Homme's finest vocal performance. The interplay of acid-etched riffs and brief desert mantras delivers one of the finest tracks in the whole QOTSA canon.

The two most famous tracks, both also released as singles, are without a doubt "No One Knows" and "Go With The Flow". The former is a breathless uptempo number, literally driven forward by Grohl's kick-snare groove, sweeping guitar, bass and the intertwined voices of Homme and Lanegan into its vortex — a track of extraordinary, reckless swagger. "Go With The Flow", written by Homme and Oliveri, is a hard-rock bullet with an epic sweep, standing as a new benchmark for every rocker of the new millennium.

Mark Lanegan's unmistakable voice returns on "Hangin' Tree", another track lashed by the relentless snare hits of a Grohl in absolute top form. The most "radio-friendly" track on the whole record is perhaps "Gonna Leave You", which at just three minutes could have made a great single, one capable of drawing in an audience less accustomed to Queens Of The Stone Age's rougher edges. The track pairs well with the following "Do It Again", which gives up neither its hard rock nature nor a catchiness that once again shines through in the chorus.

The stoner soul makes itself forcefully felt on the lengthy "God Is In The Radio", intertwining with its own blues/hard rock roots, but just as interesting is the sonic recipe of "Another Love Song", wrapped in an epic quality reminiscent of the western in the purest and most fitting sense of the term. Lanegan's final appearance comes on the dark, introverted "Song For The Deaf", a true farewell before the acoustic textures of "Mosquito Song", the ghost track tucked at the end of the tracklist, close the circle in the most unexpected way.

A key hinge in the American alternative-rock scene, a meeting point for some of its most brilliant minds, a crucial crossroads of stoner rock and everything surrounding it: "Songs For The Deaf" is all of this, and perhaps something more besides.

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29/08/2021