With a super-team with both Mark Lannegan and Dave Grohl. It was a team that was hard to beat with Josh Homme's crew. After Rated R, anticipations were quite high, this was their 'bringing out' part. They exceeded with the single No One Knows which actually got high in the charts. Josh tuned his guitar down two steps. The album is set around this radio station when quite honestly, it feels hard to break up the songs and they talk gibberish most of the time. The songs with Josh are all kind of samey to me, maybe it's the same guitar tone, I don't know. Mark Lanegan appears here in some bits. A darker approach. The music tries to give a scary atmosphere which is why this is the darkest.
Now I wouldn’t call this a failure but a step forward or a
progression. I have to admit, this album is kind of 'filler' galore. There is a lot of wasted tracks where they could have fixed up and made them awesome. Tracks like
Another Love Song and
Do It Again are wasted potential. Let me compare this to eighties thrash for a minute. At the time, thrash bands were very poor and their albums were of low quality. Most of the bands in this genre said they would of wished they had enough money to make it sound like it did on the re-masters. This what the album sounds like. Josh has a horrible guitar tone in my opinion and I don’t like the snare sound at all. The quality can be quite meh a lot of the times but it can shine through when needed.
The bad tracks out-weigh the good quite frankly. Making this a fan release. Many non-fans could find this hard to get into so Rated R is the ultimate beginners album for this awesome Stoner rock outfit. Nick’s vocals are horrible throughout the album except of course,
Songs For The Dead which is a brutal superb song well done by Nick.
Six Shooter is an awful song full of Nick randomly swearing. Most avoidable.
Another Love Song is
different'but it's a whole load of tripe. I don’t know who is singing but the vocals are very 'eek!' and the guitar is just annoying. Don’t get me wrong. It is not a bad album in any means. They are some very well done songs on here.
Songs For The Deaf is an eerie closing track with creepy screaming in the background but explodes into a powerful chorus.
First It Giveth is a fast straight-forward track with its bass intro till it's electric end. The Sky Is Fallin' starts with a kind of melodic bass drum thing with harmonics in Josh's voice. It starts with this strumming pattern. Josh does his high voice thing during the chorus. It repeats for five minutes. It's repetitive yet
addictive. One of the stronger songs on the album. It lasts quite long though it feels quite fast.
In God Is In The Radio, Mark Lanegan is singing and the vocals sound amazing. It starts off quiet with this small drum-roll and the guitars come in. This has the best chorus ever, it’s the way it follows the verses which make it so great. Sadly, I miss half of this since my CD has been borrowed many times and it is all scratched, aswell as
Songs For The Deaf. One of the only QOTSA songs in standard. Some songs on this feel unfinished, they should have re-done Do It Again. It drags on and it is very boring. Only good part on this is about 2:30 I think when Josh sings the third verse. It leads to the boring chorus though and it kind of ruins it for me. Damn right they should
Do It Again (cheap pun)
What the hell were they thinking with Six Shooter. It is a one minute and something song. It has the most horrible vocals I have ever seen Nick sing. It is supposed to portray anger though I think it just portrays noise. I want to claw my eyes (or ears or whatever) every time it comes on then I have to jump to my stereo for preventing that from happening. Josh shows his musicianship with a lovely guitar and brilliant riffs but his tone is horrible and Nick says Dimebag has a horrible tone! He tunes his guitar two steps down. I understand he is trying to get a stoner rock sound but is it all that necessary? Nick isn't that great of a musician but his on-stage performance is hilarious. he runs about naked. (You can see pictures of him onstage on the official website though I won't give the link in case of banning) His playing isn't that noticeable except on Hanging Tree. Dave Grohl is
the man. Dave has pass efforts with Nirvana and The Foo Fighters so is an explanation really necessary? There is superb and sometimes hard drumming on this album and that Dave is much better then their ordinary drummer. This album is well better than the average offering on Lullabies To Paralyze but it is under Rated R which was superb. I suggest starting with Rated R and then moving up with this album. Only if you are a hardcore fan should you buy Lullabies To Paralyze
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