Queens of The Stone Age, Villains- A Review (2017)

Queens of The Stone Age, Villains- A Review (2017)

By: Ghost Writer

Rock N Roll Animal  

With a controversial production work by pop wizard Mark Ronson (who I must add is a very good POP producer), who has worked for pop luminaries like the departed Amy Winehouse (he even appeared on several performances of Winehouse´s song Valerie)  and James Brown wanna be, Bruno Marz (ever noticed how a big rip off this Marz guy is?), it might not come as such a big surprise that Queens of The Stone Age (QUOTSA) new record Villains, is such an accessible material, ready for the video and radio airplay, obviously, this is a confusing issue for most of their die hard fans and for long time Josh Hommes fans who might find trouble listening to the record´s more danceable tracks and comparing them to Hommes´ legendary down tuned guitar work with desert rock band Kyuss 8remeber John García, Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri?), in fact this is not as much guitar rock recoding as Hommes wishes it to sound like, or like he has announced to the press, despite a promotional in which he is submitted to a polygraph, although this is not a completely forgettable effort, and it has some entertaining moments, it is certainly a far cry from QUOTSA previous recordings, and it sounds like novelty modern rock acts like the Artic Monkeys, The Strokes, the Foo Fighters or the White Stripes, opener Feet Don't Fail Me Now goes into a very interesting direction reflection Bowie's Berlin era thanks to multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita's airy keyboards, while Troy Van Leewen and Hommes guitar duel sounds a lot like Led Zeppelin dirty funk tunes while Hommes wastes no time in making his best Bowie impersonation, although ending up like a second rate gothic Peter Murphy.

But the riot really starts with the suspiciously danceable The Way You Used to Do, with swinging synthetic guitars more familiar with an act like Amy Winehouse or Lady Gaga, and a video with a dancing Hommes doesn't helps matter a bit, it's plastic rock plain and simple, like when ZZ Top forgot about Texas blues and started using lots of synths, drum machines, and MTV chick videos to sell records, the desert rock thing is gone here, the “robot rock” is replaced by the synthetic stuff,  and guitar riffs become simple hooks and gimmicks here, this is undoubtedly Hommes selling his soul to the big dollars, but hey, don't despair yet, Domesticated Animals kind of saves the moment with its robotic guitars that certainly recalls old QUOTSA and the drums by the great Jon Theodore (a veteran who has played with Zack De La Rocha and The Mars Volta), an awesome fusion drummer, replacing here Joey Castillo, and the brutal bass playing by Michael Shuman bring back some of the power this band was once able to put in display, but erratic behavior continues along the rest of the record, Fortress is the type of simple pop song with big chorus and hooks in Foo Fighters lame fashion, and Head Like a Haunted House goes back to quirky new wave, nothing really revolutionary or innovative here, with Hommes vocals again going  to strange places on a tune like The Evil Has Landed, despite a great drum and bass work, but is Hommes inflated ego trip the one who is derailing the train this time, Villains of Circumstance is another confusing song, it sounds like lame 70s rock and leaves you with a wide feeling of depiction, calling a record Villains might make not enough sense when the only villain here is Hommes enormous ego, in a time of Bad Hombres one would expect Hommes to come up with a really kick ass record but this is not, he might sell a good number of records just on Ronson reputation, but success might cost him his soul this time.