Josh Homme, one of rock’s men of the moment, gathers around himself a pick ‘n’ mix selection of musicians that include fellow Queen Of The Stone Age Joey Castillo, plus PJ Harvey, Twiggy Ramirez (Marilyn Manson) and Dean Ween.
As you might expect the overall effect is a little hard to pin down, but generally pleasingly so. First track, ‘Dead In Love’ kicks things off with a riff derivative of Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’ albeit heavier, simplified and with doom-laden vocals. One of the album’s best tracks is next, ‘I Wanna Make It Wit Chu’, which bounces along to a chugging piano, and a languid vocal duet between Homme and PJ – him taking the lead “I came here to break it, just to see how far it will bend” and her, languidly repeating the title back to him.
In fact, its Ms. Harvey’s contributions that tend to stand out. ‘A Girl Like Me’ with it’s cool, very English, almost spoken vocal, distorted and creepily sinister “I’ll be what you want me to be / to bring you to your knees”. Best of all is ‘Powdered Wig Machine’ with it’s chanted backing vocals and strange futuristic ‘harpsichord’ sounds that invoke rituals and the mysteriously arousing anonymity of masked balls while Polly delivers a fantastically restrained but powerfully effective vocal “Come on / come to me / take off your mask / your mask / kiss me”.
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However not everything she does is as pleasing. For example, ‘There will Never Be A Better Time’ contains four minutes of her what is in effect her simply moaning. Strangely, at various times, there is quite a bit of moaning on offer here, which does tend to render some tracks difficult to listen to.
No such problem with ‘Creosote’, a crazy instrumental that hinges around two metallic sounding acoustic guitars, almost bluegrass, it comes on like a heavy metal Nashville West! Also worth a mention is ‘Subcutaneous Phat’ with it’s ‘phat’ bass, neat, psychedelic guitars and choral vocals, and, ‘In My Head… Or Something’ that’s like a perfect Foo Fighters pastiche with a teasingly pop-ish twist that keeps whisperin’ ‘My Sharona’ in your ear.
An album that’s at it’s best when it sits back a bit, lays off the jackhammer rhythms and allows the songs to ebb and flow on their own atmospherics.
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