Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Like a well-kept 20 year old bottle of finest malt being poured out without impunity, you know as soon as you take off the protective casing and put on the new C.D. by Queens Of The Stone Age, Like Clockwork, sitting comfortably on your bed or in your favourite armchair that what you will soon be enveloped by the heady aroma, the intoxicating aroma and reckless indomitable spirit filling every sense possible and a few more besides.
It might not quite reach the heights laid out a decade ago of Songs for the Deaf in terms or monstrous appeal but what it has over and above that album is sheer depth, a majesty of pomp and the clear cut drive that has always been part of Josh Homme’s inner core. It plays around with sound and the result is one that creates a widening gap between Q.O.T.S.A. and between anything that can be deemed as coming from the same music family. In very much the same way that Red Hot Chili Peppers crossed a dividing line and widened their overall allure, Queens Of The Stone Age experiment more than a university fresher on their first night out left alone in a bar.
The smashing of glass heralds the new album like a hungry tiger coming out of the clearing; mean, significant and brutal, it’s only objective is to feast on the tattered remains left by the band’s six year absence. Keep Your Eyes Peeled, the outstanding piano based beauty of The Vamprye Of Time And Memory with its complexity and imagery of desperation and sexual magnetism, My God Is The Sun and the desolation and realisation invoked in Fairweather Friends with its stunning guitar opening in which then turns into a heartfelt burst of bitterness and anger at the whole stupidity of seeing through people in the end all make this album a magnificent piece, a true record of ingenuity and genuine attitude.
Old ghosts are laid to rest, the desert opens up before the listener and the bourbon flows liberally as the fire flickers and crackles in honour of tales of great tunes made by this Californian band. Now there is another exceptional and dark tale to add in the shape of Like Clockwork.
Ian D. Hall