Them Crooked Vultures - "s/t"

This was so much better than I ever could have expected. I was initially worried that Them Crooked Vultures was going to be some Dead Weather-like crock of throwing names onto an album pumped to the roof with insanely skeletal and psychedelic youtube promo videos and viral concert clips that would utterly and miserably disappoint but effectively steal your money. Thankfully, this album is not even close to such a farce. Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones didn't screw us over. Them Crooked Vultures is definitely the real deal in terms of rock albums this year (and on a side note, I was shocked, absolutely and incomprehensibly shocked when I saw that Pitchfork, who without hesitation or justification wet their pants over mainstream artists forming supergroups like this, gave this album a 6.2; shocked) and probably one of my favorites.

I think the main reason this album earns my proclivity--aside from the closing (and punishing) triade of "Caligulove," "Gunman," and "Spinning in Daffodils"--is that it is, for all intents and purposes, a Queens of the Stone Age album. The first sounds you hear on "No One Loves Me and Neither Do I" are the syncopated snare and cymbal ride of Dave Grohl's drums, but after about six seconds, it's obvious that Homme is in charge. Grohl just pounds the skins hard, in a bone-rattling way; he supplies drums in a way that ordinary drummers could supply drums to an album that is primarily a fist-fight of instrumentation (and to be honest, Grohl hasn't done it for me on drums since this group). The fact that the bassist of Led Zeppelin is on bass is almost irrelevant and unnoticeable, because Homme's presence is that of the lead, central character. His raunchy guitar hooks and specter-ish vocals are what drive and consume every song here. To the uninitiated, Them Crooked Vultures would be indiscernible from say, R or Songs for the Deaf. This is without a doubt the most preferable and desirable outcome, because any resemblance to Grohl's present day Foo Fighters would have sank the hard-ass edge this trio was looking for.