What A brilliant opening!! The staccato 'Nicotine, Valium, Vicodan, Marijuana, Ecstacy and Alcohol…..'vocal of the single 'Feel Good Hit of The Summer'. The sound quite fuzzy and fat, almost heavy T-Rex …. This song kicks like Warrior Soul's 'Love Is A Drug', and few things do that! I wish I'd seen the band when they played live… shucks!!! Guest on backing vocals is none other than Judas Priest's Rob Halford!

Joshua Homme , who does most of the lead vocals and guitars does occasionally remind me of Michael Hutchence 'specially when he's singing mellow, maybe a bit Mike Patton… I loved the Worst-Case-Scenario-dEUS-esque disjointed abstractions of 'Leg of Lamb' , the third track. Yeah…it's a kind of er…. bendy record…the songs are ace, but their sound is …so hard to describe… anyone remember Urge Overkill?? Sort of in a similar ball park… but better and weirder… and probably a degree more stoned! 'Auto Pilot' rambles on in a nice way, with a lovely Bowie style acoustic middle eight and Mark Lanegan from Screaming Trees doing one of several guest vocals. 'Better Through Living Chemistry' opens with bongos like 'Sympathy for The Devil' but the melodies and vocals are like the most haunting NIN moments… eerie… songs like this will grow and grow on me… This song, with its great dynamics would be brilliant live… and again I get gutted that I missed them…

'Monsters In The Parasol' moves back to the abstract, but it's almost daft like Madness at times! Then 'Quick and To The Pointless' gets us back to the energetic rock and roll perfection of the title track, with Wendy Ray Moan adding Boss Hog tones in the background. Then we're dropped on our head with a radical change of mood with the mellow reggae-ish opening to 'In The Fade', featuring Mark Lanegan on lead vocal. We hit Cop Shoot Cop territory on 'Tension Head', with Nick Oliveri, the bass player, doing a spot of hot Todd A tonsil work which totally kicks royal ass… more driving music yeah!!! .. and then onto a beautiful mellow release with 'Lightning Song'… The album closes with 'I Think I Lost My Headache', an arabic stomp reminiscent of Zeppelin, Faith No More and, again Nine Inch Nails…

This is one of the best Rock albums I have heard for ages. Like Trent Reznor's 'Downward Spiral', Jane's Addictions 'Ritual de lo Habitual' and …the pioneering Beatles' 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' the 'Queens have made this album a journey, a trip best listened to from beginning to end. I wish more people paid attention to this instead of just chucking songs together. An album can be like a symphony, like a feature film, and yet most acts settle for a collection of short stories. The Queens of The Stone Age did GOOD… highly recommended.