Hi, everyone! Ninethony Timestano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Queens of the Stone Age album, Perfecth.

Yes, from what I understand, this is the ninth full-length record from the legendary veteran alternative rock outfit Queens of the Stone Age, fronted, of course, by the one and only guitarist, singer-songwriter Josh Homme, who is hitting us with another batch of songs just several years after the release of In Time's New Roman..., which itself was an interesting release in a lot of ways, also came after a six-year gap between it and its preceding record, Villains, a project that at the time, I thought was easily one of the band's weakest records to date. But honestly, this whole recent era from Queens of the Stone Age has almost been an ongoing exercise in diminishing returns.

Which is kind of disappointing, considering how strong the band kicked off the 2010s with the record ...Like Clockwork. It's funny how that album dropped during a time when I think the prevailing narrative around a lot of music publications was that rock is dead, it's no longer interesting, and here you have this alt-rock band that has its roots back in the 90s. The 80s, even, if you start counting back to the beginnings of Kyuss, of course.

But after a very solid run through the 2000s, the 2010s were just about a time when you would suspect a band like Queens of the Stone Age to start putting out their worst material, just like so many other groups who started around the same time they did.

However, ...Like Clockwork, miraculously, was not just one of the best albums of the year that year, but one of the best albums in their catalog. Packed with mind-blowing production, some of the best songs Josh has ever written, and the record nailed this incredibly perfect balance between the grittiness and the nastiness of that trademark desert rock guitar sound that they're known for. They helped popularize it in a lot of ways, and then spliced that with more mature instrumentation, more weary and forlorn vocal performances, too. It just really showed a new side of the band, and at least in a way, kind of assured that Queens of the Stone Age going forward would be finding ways to kind of age gracefully.

But in the wake of ...Light Clockwork, sadly, I feel like we've heard anything but. And now, frankly, with Perfecth, this, to my ears, has now become the weakest record in the group's catalog. We just continue to trend downhill, but honestly, I can't be too surprised given some of the teasers to this record. The overall tone and attitude the band is showcasing on this release, as well as the title and many song titles on this thing, lead me to feel like this album is just one long dad joke or something.

And yeah, Queens of the Stone Age are no strangers to a snide or raunchy joke in their lyrics or in the details of their records, for sure. But "Where The Goth Girl's At?" really? Seriously? It doesn't help that this track and teaser feature maybe the dumbest, most stiff, and insulting riff the band has ever laid to tape. It sounds like something Devo would do as a gag to show just how zany and kooky and robotic and devolved they are.

And look, it would work in that context, but here's Queens of the Stone Age taking pretty much the same riff style, but trying to pull it off as something serious and a little edgy. With, of course, a fat helping of absurd humor. Landing at a time when obsessing over goth girls on the internet is something just about every normie is doing. In a way, it feels kind of like a "how are you doing, fellow kids?" type moment. But still, honestly, I feel like I could at least give a compliment to this track on having focus, structure, something that it's trying to accomplish here.

When I dug into the rest of Perfecth, the real issue I found is that the whole LP just feels so casual, so unplanned, so derivative. It's almost like Josh just didn't really want to write songs on this one and instead subjected us to a bunch of loose demos or jams that are kind of finagled into songs or tried to cobble together semblances of songs, based on ideas from popular tracks that he likes.

Let's take the opening track, for example, which I think is a very weary and forlorn tone setter. Features some very basic chords, and I would say the most average vocal performance from Josh. The only real x-factor on this track is the string sections, and there's not really a proper ending on the track at all. It's just kind of interrupted by this very loud sound effect of a train flying by, which cuts the whole thing off, very uneventfully, and doesn't really add that much to the start of the album, honestly. It's more grating than anything.

Following this, we have the track "Insignificant Other," another dad joke of sorts. But really, the thing that sticks in my craw about this track is that it's kind of like this flavor of boomer blues rock that I wish just died out a long time ago. I mean, it certainly had its peaks and moments in the sun, but honestly, I don't really need Queens of the Stone Age to write a song that sounds like Eric Clapton's "Cocaine." We can just simply have Eric Clapton's " Cocaine" or whatever kind of ZZ Top variation they're attempting to pitifully pull off here.

While I understand on some level maybe that kind of guitar work has been a long-standing influence on the band's style and riff writing, for them to embrace it as closely as they are here on this particular track just feels like a loss in personality.

Then with "Mono," we're subjected to another track that yet again, sounds like a demo or a bootleg or some kind of like loose jam the band was casually recording and Josh just decided to throw some vocals and strings in the mix along with a bridge where you're just getting like blood-curdling screams. But yeah, not only is the lack of direction songwriting-wise on this track aggravating, but the whole recording sounds like the band just took one single microphone and just put it at the far end of a room in a warehouse and then just, like, you know, captured whatever was happening in the room and just put that on the album.

Thankfully, the following "From the Cliff" sounds properly recorded, but again, this is yet another derivative moment on the album that kind of sounds like an acoustic Radiohead loosie from back in the day. I mean, it's fine and maybe in a way cool to hear that parallel pop up in QOTSA music despite the fact that it's not always a predominant influence. But it's still a pretty forgettable song at the end of the day, and I have to question: is this a sound or a style I feel like I need to hear from Queens of the Stone Age, and I don't think I do.

Unfortunately, things do not pick up from here, because on the track "Sunday" we get what kind of sounds like the intro to like a Home Depot commercial. It's like this groovy dance rock that's like a little rustic and a little gritty, but there's still like a disco groove coming off the beats in the background. The closest point of comparison I can think of is like that one time Foo Fighters did like a disco EP, or maybe like Station to Station era David Bowie but terrible. Like the grooves and the guitars are kind of there, but the vocals, the flamboyance, the fun are definitely not.

Then "Easy Street," despite this being a very underwhelming moment for me as a single because I just don't really think acoustic rock is Queens of the Stone Age's bag, miraculously this does end up being one of the stronger tracks on the record, at least songwriting-wise. I mean, sure, these guitar parts are doing very, very little for me production-wise; I just don't think this is like what Queens of the Stone Age do best. But at least the chord progressions aren't completely bland, and Josh actually brings some pretty confessional lyricism on this one too. In a way, despite the fact that I didn't rave about this one in the lead-up to this record, this entire track list has made "Easy Street" warm up to me a bit.

"Phantom Limb," though, is another head-scratcher in the track list. Because not only do the chords that open this track back up feel like something off of an old Soundgarden or even Audioslave song. But weirdly, the chorus here busts into a melody that for the whole first three-fourths of it sounds like a dead ringer for Duran Duran's "Rio." But then, at the very end, Josh kind of trails off into a couple of alternate notes. But make no mistake, the whole opening da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da is like totally lifted from one of the most popular new wave songs of all time.

And I have no earthly idea why Josh just kind of thought, yeah, I can basically do almost 80% of this melody and just put it into a new song, and it'll be whatever. Again, I can't recall a time when it felt like this man's songwriting process was this derivative.

Then, "Run Away From the Mob," the closing track on this thing, I feel like in so many ways encapsulates the main issue with not only this album, but this most recent era of Queens of the Stone Age. And at its core, I feel like this isn't too bad of a track, but the guitars and the performances, for some reason, are just so mild, so toned down, so bland, so boring, just lacking that spice, that kick, that oomph that made records such as not only Songs for the Deaf, but even ...Like Clockwork, go over as well as they did. They're just not here. It's really strange. I mean, going back to the days of Kyuss, and even to the debut Queens of the Stone Age record, and even Villains, you could say, stay tuned to an extent.

One thing that's always made Josh Homme special as a guitarist and as a frontman is this dude cares about his guitar tones. This guy really loves a nice texture, a nice sound, a nice fuzz. Something that's gonna bring the band's riffs a little grit, a little heat. And then add into that a considerable amount of swagger, and you've got the starting formula for a great rock song.

But unfortunately, Perfecth just has so little of that, almost none, on most of these tracks. And sure, maybe to some degree, the band could have begun to feel like, hey, maybe we're painting ourselves into a corner a little bit here, and we wanna, basically like, flex our songwriting chops, and tone things down, and do more acoustic stuff. I could sympathize with that feeling. Lots of my favorite bands have done the same over the years.

But sadly, I think Queens of the Stone Age, all they did in going through that transition was prove just how bad they are at that. And if they are to do it again, I feel like they're really gonna need to go back to the songwriting shed and start writing some damn songs that are gonna sound fantastic when given a very subtle presentation. Which is why I'm feeling about a light to decent 3 on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Josh Homme. Forever.