Queens of the Stone Age
...Like Clockwork
Matador

Since Queens of the Stone Age's (QOTSA) big breakthrough with Songs for the Deaf (2002), Josh Homme and his cohorts have only come up with three albums; Lullabies to Paralyze (2005), Era Vulgaris (2007), and now ...Like Clockwork - and, it's been six years since their last record.

...Like Clockwork presents more of Homme's rock songs, guided by his signature guitar sound and riffs, as well as his signature voice (when forming QOTSA he ended up singing lead for the first time in his career, after asking a number of singers to be lead vocalist - including his friend Mark Lanegan). However I feel that ... Like Clockwork, the songs on it, lack some inventiveness, creativity, and temperature. Of course there are some exceptions, such as "I Sat By The Ocean", and the single "My God Is The Sun" is a classic QOTSA rocker.

There are some cameo appearance on the album, including former (and now forgiven) bass player Nick Oliveri (backing vocals), Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and....: Elton John! Sir Elton John stated: "I've never really played on a record with a rock band like that and for me it was one of the most exciting things I've ever done." He also told Homme "the Queens needed an actual queen", and he also '...reduced Homme to the second biggest party animal in the room'! The track with Elton John is "Fairweather Friends", which is a fair enough song. Quite colourful and flamboyant, with quite a 1970s hard rock touch.

...Like Clockwork has been described by Homme as "...an audio documentary of a manic year". Well, here's both ballad-like stuff side by side with harder rocks, but in total I'm quite disappointed with the album. Not that I had any expectations. I just wanted to check out what Homme and Co was up to. Here's no "Regular John", no "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret", no "Feel Good Hit of the Summer", no "Better Living Through Chemistry", no "No one Knows" (co-written with Mark Lanegan, and with Dave Grohl adding his powerful brilliance), no "First It Giveth", no "Go With The Flow", or "Hanging Tree" (vocals by Lanegan). I didn't expect so either.

Copyright © 2013 Håvard Oppøyen