Era Lapideum…
Before we get started, I wanted to shout out Killer Mike’s Michael, which was expected to be excellent and is; and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s PetroDragonic Apocalypse, which was expected to be very weird and excellent, and is both. But there’s a titan of the hard, alternative rock scene back from a six-year hiatus, and their towering monolith is awesome and terrifying enough to block out the sun. Of course, it’s…
In Times New Roman…
Queens of the Stone Age
Hard Rock
Queens of the Stone Age have long been a paragon of how to remain high-quality over years, and now, decades. Even the dips in said quality—2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2017’s Villains—are B+ albums at worst, the former because of a general messiness and randomness of style, the latter because of songwriting that was much more simplistic than what we’ve all grown accustomed to. So, when others say that In Times New Roman… is a “return to form,” I wonder, apart from just time, did they really have to go that far to “return.”
Picking that apart, the new album is more like a wonderful mixture of those past ideas that might not have been quite ready the first time, now baked to a delicious doneness. In the “batshit insane” category of the Era Vulgaris days, we have opener “Obscenery” and the utterly unhinged “What the Peephole Say.” I hear bits of Villians on single “Carnavoyeur” and the Bowie/Zeppelin mash-up that is “Made to Parade.” But unmistakably littered throughout is the prefect stylistic blending of masterpiece …Like Clockwork and the oft-forgotten Lullabies to Paralyze.
I can also say, without any doubt or apprehension, that In Times New Roman contains Josh Homme’s very best lyrics. His macabre, gallows humor is in full view, as well as some tearfully poignant meditations on loss and hopelessness in the wake of that loss.
The final pre-release single, “Paper Machete,” is a fantastic addition to the QOTSA canon, and is easily one of their best songs since “Little Sister.” The feedbacked upstroke that separates each bar of the guitar riff is pure genius, and the two guitars dueling for your attention at the song’s end as each vies for more volume, adds not only interest but increasing tension. Homme’s lyrics are dark and pointed, creating a brutal takedown of a manipulative and masochistic character. “They’re out to get you, aren’t they?” he asks in a withering sarcasm fine-tuned by the desert heat, before going on to call his target “Joan of Arc, victim, perpetrator / Just a paper machete.” The second verse, meanwhile, starts with a real showcase of his wordsmithing: “The truth is just a piece of clay / You sculpt, you change, you hide, then you erase.”
Major influences from Homme’s time with Them Crooked Vultures ring out on “Time & Place”: polyrhythm guitars, a driving bass line, that signature falsetto. A chef’s kiss to you, sirs. It also contains another great Homme line: “Your promises are smoke, I’ll see you inhale (in Hell).” It has a standard Era Vulgaris ending where the song seems to… fall apart, instruments stumbling and checking out one by one until just the one guitar pluck is remaining.
More TCM influences show up on “Sicily,” in what might be the most experimental QOTSA have gone since 2007’s “Misfit Love.” The instrumentation is dark, brooding, and all but hidden until a massive “Kashmir”-esque orchestra and guitar combo blasts between verses. Cooldown periods see that TCM-style distant piano and hollow, echoing slide guitar, before blasting back into Physical Graffiti territory. Homme’s falsetto is at full quaver, giving the entire affair an especially eerie feeling.
Closer “Straight Jacket Fitting” is perhaps QOTSA’s most heart-rending track. It’s also the most critical of the world in general, which is probably apt considering the title’s implication. The musical structure of the verse is a ZZ-Top-inspired blues-rock strut, and the lyrics are the harshest social commentary Homme has delivered…yet: “Come for a fitting way of life / It’s all the rage, enslaved[’s] in style / Come for a fitting way of life / Straight jacket fitting a little too tight?” Homme is introducing us to the chrous with “the old world melts like a candle flickering out,” when the band explodes with layers of guitars—both distorted and clear—pounding bass and drums, and an incredibly desperate set of lines: “Wake up, we need you / No more daydreaming / Don’t fall asleep now.” The transition back to verse gives us a mixed scream/growl that is blood-curdling in the context.
A middle eight breakdown sees another Homme signature of a half-spoken-half-sung, barely comprehensible diatribe, though I am able to make out incredibly pointed remarks about “affix your blades and steel your nerves” (another delicious bit of wordplay: blades… steel… get it?), and “patriotic, probiotic, deletist, erasist (e-racist).” The bridge is equally unnerving, as a string section replaces the rest of the band while layer upon layer of Homme’s voice sings “to face down your demons, you’ve got to free them,” in a round. But the true, nerve-shattering, heartbreaking moment is the final chorus, which, for poetry’s sake, I shall print here:
What can you do?
We’re all alone in times new Roman, no allegiance
Chasing your wish over the cliff
Oh, I insist on daydreaming
What can you say?
Enjoy the buffet in times new Roman, or it’s treason
What’d you expect?
I’m so goddamned sick of this place
Bring on the healing
Go on and heal me
The song goes on to reprise itself in a the desert-folk style of “Mosquito Song,” a fitting parallel.
Purely for the sake of some sort of journalistic integrity, I’ll admit that I LOVE Queens of the Stone Age. But, at the same time, I’m not without my judgements as to their previous efforts. I’ve loved all their albums, but since bassist Nick Oliveri was fired (with good cause), the sound of the band just never had that… ferocity, that dangerous edge. Sure, Era Vulgaris was dangerous in the sense it sounded like you were locked in a speeding car driven by a hallucinating meth-head (REMEMBER! B+!), and certainly Like Clockwork was a brilliantly designed concept album about death and dying. But this… In Times New Roman is something else entirely.
This is, by far, my favorite album since the halcyon (and clearly some uppers) days of 2002. This time, the robots really are back, but they’re made of street trash and out for revenge.
