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Queens of the Stone Age – Perfecth

Marking thirty years since they formed, the veteran rockers’ ninth studio album is a dark, muted, tightly-crafted set of songs.

Review by

Tom Parmiter

Tom is a UK-based music writer who first contributed to No Ripcord in 2018.

Marking thirty years of Queens of the Stone Age, Perfecth, the group’s ninth studio album, is a dark, muted, tightly-crafted set of songs that carries the band’s trademark intrigue.

Josh Homme may be the last man standing from their 1998 debut record, but the hallmarks of those early days remain. “Where The Goth Girls At?” could fit on that album with ease, its stark verses colliding with a beefy chorus, a rocking outro and slowly building strings woven through the mix. Similarly, it is very Queens to open proceedings with a relatively lowkey number, carrying an ominous feel and tension-filled lyrics. “It’s Only Love” teeters on the edge, with this emotion the one thing keeping its narrator from imploding.

The nine tracks explore varying degrees of emotional vulnerability, and in pleasingly diverse ways. “Mono” has roomy drum sounds, strings coming and going, and static and screams, promptly followed by the warm, wide acoustic guitars of “From the Cliff.” A personal favourite is “Sunday,” driven by Jon Theodore’s tom-tom-led groove and a chorus that proves a real grower, the whole thing sounding like the bastard child of ZZ Top and David Bowie.

Perhaps the most unsettling track here is “Easy Street,” its jangly guitars and surface-level bonhomie sharply contrasting with lyrics filled with gloom and murk. Homme paints a pretty broken picture with the line “if you need me come and see me on easy street, I ain’t hard to find,” as country artist Nikki Lane augments this feel with backing vocals and handclaps. “Phantom Limb” follows this, its strong chorus seeming to hint at breaking free from the narrative mire, with admissions of needing help and experiencing “my first time living.” The record closes with a guest spot from perennial friend of the band and one-time member Dave Grohl drumming on “Run Away From the Mob,” all his heft utilised in a closing minute of overdriven release.

Queens are a band that makes the maximum use of a specific palette of sounds, and you really get a sense of that once again here—the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. This isn’t to downplay the solid musicianship from the band throughout, but rather the reverse. The band’s unpretentious approach is a key ingredient for why their discography is so consistent. Perfecth again hits the mark; it has a bit of everything that makes Queens of the Stone Age unique, and maintains an excellent emotional tension throughout.

Perfecth is out now via Matador.