Josh Homme promised he would “roll up his sleeves” and issue a new Queens of the Stone Age album soon after In Times New Roman, and he has delivered. The band are back together after a rocky few years that were out of their hands, be it show cancellations or trimming the fat of their Billy Gibbons-featuring sessions. Perfecth comes at a time when Homme, and by extension the band, feel the fires of creativity once again and they’re letting it propel them some place special on this ten-track release. Three singles that paint a very different picture of the band and offer Homme some breathing room to tackle the creative future of the band. It’s no small feat to do so, and it does sound as though Queens of the Stone Age are throwing as much as they can into the studio, irrespective of where it fits or how it sounds. Sometimes, though, that works. It does for Perfecth, an apt title for an album designed not to care for the intricacies of perfectionism.
It’s a bold and brash bit of work from Queens of the Stone Age, who sound as though they’re making up for lost time. Opening song It’s Only Love is an atmospheric powerhouse, a crackling and clanging instrumental thrill as Homme claims not to care what the future may hold. It’s easy to buy into what he’s offering, but dig a little deeper and that passion pours through It’s Only Love, and by extension the rest of the album. Queens of the Stone Age escape their typecasting by offering an album that’s massively different to anything they’ve done before. It’ll no doubt split audiences, but the contrarians who wanted a major change, something that they thought would never be the style or sound of Queens of the Stone Age, will be thrilled. Rightly so. Blues-y follow-up Insignificant Other relies on the subtle grooves of the band and Homme’s vocal charms. An all-timer from the band here A truly great piece of work that identifies a whole new sound for Homme and the gang to lean into. It suits them more than anything they’ve done before.
Homme sits with some deep reflection on the last few years on second single Where the Goth Girls at?. It’s a song that has him reeling from the lost years, the cancelled plans and all those what if’s that came about when the In Times New Roman tour was cut short. Perfecth doesn’t look to replace that experience but improves in ways that redefine Queens of the Stone Age as a totally new band. Haunting vocal work from Homme is paired nicely with some ridiculously strong guitar riffs, this ever-rising thrill that’s naturally cut short, suddenly, with the band drifting back into this smoky lounge-like noise on Mono. It sounds a bit like noodling on their instruments, but Queens of the Stone Age do find some inspiring moments during that exploration of their sound. What they come out with is softer than anticipated, but strikingly refreshing for a band that seems to think they were heading towards a rudderless, passive existence.
Queens of the Stone Age avoid stagnation by reinventing themselves with soft acoustics, blues-y ballads, and a sense of urgency that prevails in Homme’s lyrics. He writes of taking leaps of faith, of regretting the time lost to passive, bad luck. Perfecth is not so much a redemption arc as it is a band suddenly leaping into action; the fear of idle hands makes for a perfect studio inspiration. An impersonation of David Bowie on the slick and cool Sunday is nicely placed; that vocal style suits Homme well. Perfecth is balanced delicately between a Queens of the Stone Age classic and an experimental deep dive where the band are keen to throw out what they know. Replacing it with the unknown, as they do across Perfecth, makes it the most ambitious and exciting album Queens of the Stone Age has released since Songs of the Death. It lingers a lot longer than their second album did, and on that metric, Perfecth may even be better than the band’s discography to date.
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