Three years since their last release, and much has changed for Queens of the Stone Age. They dropped out of a few touring commitments and went relatively quiet until the back end of 2025. There, they fashioned out a few convincing performances and did their best to articulate why Songs for the Deaf was not just a one-song wonder. In Times New Roman did little to support that but we’re three years on from that release and it’s time for new material. Easy Street drops out of the blue and marks a point of new meaning and menace for the Josh Homme-fronted band. Everyone tires of straight rock and roll, unless you’re Dave Grohl and can use it to hide yourself in as Foo Fighters perform to radio listeners across Europe. Even Queens of the Stone Age have heard the final call, the last orders of rock and roll. Now is the time to pivot and they do so as gracefully as can be.
Easy Street is a chance to hear the band perform with a little bit of a softer sound. Their acoustic and folk flirtations are centre stage now. But it’s not just gentle guitar riffs at play here. It’s a chance to create some faux radio crackling and clapping. Either that or these Bose headphones are on their way out. Queens of the Stone Age strip their sound back because MTV Unplugged is hardly set to continue. There’s other, valid artistic reasons to do so too and much of it appears to be about spotlighting Homme as a vocalist. It works. He’s a lyricist of blunt contrasts. “Shut up,” followed by one of two extremes. Intimacy or abandon is what he serves and with the softer, quieter flourishes of Easy Street at play, it’s hard not to hear how that contrast deepens. It works nicely for the band though the moments of silence and a few special effect choices, a shooting star-like swooshing for instance, really does take you out of it.
A few whining guitar riffs in the latter stage of the song signal the start of what could be a rock and roll accompaniment, but the reserved tone is willpower at play. Queens of the Stone Age sound either dedicated to a whole new sound or are willing to give themselves over to the quieter and calmer flourishes that come with a softer sound. Instrumentally, it suits them. It means Homme’s work as a lyricist is highlighted and that’s where Queens of the Stone Age run a real risk. They pull it off here because the premise is fair and Homme at least writes with an honesty that was obscured by the sounds of In Times New Roman. Nikki Lane features briefly as an additional vocalist and her softer vocal work makes all the difference. If it were Homme alone it’d tire pretty fast, but his fears of the worst are backed well by a voice of hope.
Queens of the Stone Age leave a few mistakes in place to add to this feeling of sincerity. But some of that feels performative and arbitrary when the band has expressed that the intention was to make it feel genuine. You can make genuine music while also fixing a few of the problems. None of it sounds all that strange or off-putting either. A strange comment for the band to make but it’s all about adopting the song into an image which it isn’t strong enough to present itself. That’ll work to some extent and there’s certainly a chance that Easy Street ends up in that sentimental setlist spot where the band dims the lights and gives Homme the spotlight while the rest of the group potters around on stage, finishing games of Scrabble and settling in for the inevitable rock-heavy encore. It’s a stop-gap song, a nice one, but not necessarily a great one.
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