Dragging Queens Fail to Rekindle Early '90s Seattle Grunge

Queens of the Stone Age
Songs for the Deaf

The new Queens of the Stone Age album, Songs for the Deaf, is aptly titled. During its worst moments, you just might wish you were devoid of hearing.

Mediocre songwriting and uninspired playing overshadow the few sparks of brilliance buried within the album's better cuts.

Drummer Dave Grohl -- former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman -- is the unintentional star of the show. His playing has matured immensely since the early '90s, and his work on this record is both more technically proficient and more tasteful than the blunt, plodding style he employed with Nirvana.

Grohl's spectacular fills in the chorus of "No One Knows" and the intro and outro of "A Song for the Dead" are some of the best examples of musicianship on the entire album. He also negotiates the odd time and mixed meter of "Hangin' Tree" with apparent ease, making this the most intriguing track on the record.

But Josh Homme, guitarist and vocalist for the group, is not so impressive. His voice, at its best, sounds something like that of Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell -- harkening back to the worst of the Seattle grunge scene.

In the best tunes, like "The Sky is Fallin'," Homme creatively juxtaposes poppy falsetto vocal lines over abrasive heavy-metal riffs.

But in most of the latter half of the album, he sounds bored and uninspired. Heavy production and studio trickery try, and fail, to mask this shortcoming.

Homme's lyrics are also abysmal. Almost all of the songs feature choruses that repeat a single cliched phrase ad nauseam.

And the album's guitar and bass work suffers from the same ailment. Aside from minimal soloing on "A Song for the Dead" and "God is in the Radio," as well as some interesting acoustic work on "Mosquito Song," the main riffs are repetitive and bland.

The myriad punk-inspired power chords and awkward lead lines are too prevalent to be effective, particularly with Nick Oliveri rarely playing a bass line that does anything but double the roots of the guitar chords.

The songs' only shared strength lies in their intricate arrangement. Most of the tunes vaguely adhere to standard rock and roll verse-chorus structure. But interesting elaborations like long instrumental intros, outros, bridges and well-rehearsed breaks abound. These features punctuate the otherwise completely repetitive nature of the album and almost make up for the lack of musicianship demonstrated in other areas.

The odd time of "Hangin' Tree" and the clever combination of guitar, strings and piano on "Mosquito Song" are further points of interest.

The album's best moments will definitely get some heads banging. But the potential demonstrated in the superior material is never realized in the remainder of the album. Songs for the Deaf tries to be a progressive, artistic metal record, a speed-demon punk record and a radio-friendly grunge record all at once.

Somewhere in that limbo, its motive and direction get lost.

The Art & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.