Queens of The Stone Age

I have exasperated the Pure Rock _purveyed by **Queens of the Stone Age **countless times before. It is not, will not and can not be conceded for _anything: not more sales; not more wacky shows; not more nothing. Now there is little left to convince you of - everyone’s seen the desert monsters in action by now. You know not to expect anything more than a no frills display of unadulterated rock.

The stress-infused melodies of a vacant heaven brings an old breed of heavy to the fore - a beautified cycle of monotony that we have witnessed for record upon record. There is no notable progression to their sound, seen in so many other bands. I have always argued the case for _anti-progression _in music - always misconstrued to mean stagnation - but this is merely the art of perfection.

*QotSA * are said to play _‘stoner Rock’ _but the growling sludge and sense of looming tragedy are not quite absent, just slightly tentative in their release. An increase in the choral instruction can be observed through the successive records but here, it is a marvellously cacophonic amalgamation of a career - each track blending in to one another like lovers on a rooftop under the hail of two-thousand shy six mortar bombs.

Contrasting songs old and new with lithe satisfaction, *Josh Homme *spews his bounteous frame across the stage, barely moving but flexing every required muscle to separate those magical chunks of congealed sand through the front row into the wincing faces of those of us just in front of the sound booth. It is nice. Nice in the way your head is thrown back in childlike glee, almost involuntarily, at the coming of that special riff or the realisation of that oh-so-false ending or the satisfaction in recognising that spectacularly unusual drum manoeuvre. Nice.

You always await the revelation of the sixth member of The Queens *and tonight, sadly for some, he does not appear. Has it come to _this_, that the enthralling entertainment extravaganza you have come to expect from your live music experience has extended as far as the envisaging of a naked bald man with a terrible beard? Like fuck it has. This is what you get when they don't need special lights or naked female dancers or make-up or stilts or chainsaws or puke or anything but the Rock to put on a show. This is the mark of _Possibly The Best Band in the World _*at the moment...

This is all about the Rock.

There is no available prefix or suffix to this Rock.

It is just Rock.