INTERSCOPE

Queens wears its
influences proudly

---

By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

"Songs for the Deaf"
Queens of the Stone Age
Interscope

Look out, this cult band is ready to break out, thanks to the participation of a certain fellow best associated with Nirvana and Foo Fighters.

The personable Dave Grohl has taken time out from his own band to lend his formidable drumming skills for this band that started getting national attention two years ago due to its stoner-Black Sabbath riffs and confident command of hard-driving rock.

Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri first made their name with "desert acid rock" in a band called Kyuss. Following the band's breakup in 1995, Homme left Palm Beach, Calif., for the former grunge capital, Seattle, and spent two years touring with one of the city's better bands, Screaming Trees.

Homme formed Queens of the Stone Age with Oliveri, and the pair's latest album, with guests Grohl and Screaming Trees lead vocalist Mark Lanegan, is an entertaining hoot of a CD. The Queens wear their influences proudly on their sleeves but avoid slavishly aping classic rock riffs.

This is not an image-conscious band, but one content to let the music do the talking. The group also has a sense of humor, which includes taking satirical jabs at format-driven radio stations and empty deejay chatter throughout "Songs for the Deaf," as in "Clone Radio," "KRDL 109 -- We spoil music for everyone!" and "The WOMB."

There's an instant take-no-prisoners attitude with the opening "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire." The album's lead single, "No One Knows," is a prime example of how the band marries chugging rock riffs with sensitive, almost fey lyrics, making for a tasty sweet-and-sour mix to the ears.

Lanegan is a co-writer on that song and partly responsible for the hallucinatory grunge of the title song, but his high lonesome wail can be heard in stark relief on the moody and dramatic "Hangin' Tree."

Another song done relatively straight is the generically titled "Another Love Song," filled with all the melodrama of '60 garage psychedelia, complete with organ flourishes. "The Sky Is Fallin'" also has a very '60s vibe akin to Cream's sound.

BUT THE Queens love all things rock, so there's the death-metal parody "Six Shooter," the pop-glam number "Do It Again" and the bastard offspring of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" called "God Is in the Radio."

There are a couple of tracks that show off the band in all its glory. "Song for the Dead" is full-tilt, lurching grunge with a Ted Nugent variation, filled with wailing, harried electric guitars and Grohl pounding away until you think his hands will bleed. And the closing cosmic opus, "Mosquito Song," throws in everything but the kitchen sink -- acoustic guitar, accordion, pump organ, piano, strings, percussion and horns -- in a wonderful, uncluttered arrangement. It's like, you know, about everything and nothing!

Early pressings of "Songs for the Deaf" include a limited-edition DVD that features studio and interview footage with Homme and Oliveri, plus the band's March 7 gig at Hollywood's Troubadour, which marked the first time Grohl sat in on drums.

The Queens of the Stone Age don't just rock, they RAWK! They luxuriate in their heavyosity, you know what I'm saying?

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