Precious, clever by half, yet still, this no-flab collab between Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones coughs up so many riffs and such immediacy that one excuses Homme’s annoying coterie of freaky styley vocal personas, or at least picks more than half of them to like with a chuckle, leaving only a handful as nose-wrinklers. The overall smorg is definitely 55% to 71% QOTSA, but one can also hear the immense multi-faceted Zep talent of Jones infusing the writing and of course, the bass licks. Grohl – not so much. He’s not sounding much like himself, or Bonham, but a talented classic rock drummer who grooves but mostly stays out of the way. QOTSA yes, but also very much Masters Of Reality of the killer ignored green and orange album era, and indeed, this is better than any of the Queens albums. Rubbed in like a walnut stain is a bunch of Cream, Mountain, Cactus, White Stripes and any other band ever before or after compared to Zeppelin, poor man’s bunches included. Why this wins you over in the end though is the fact that, eccentric and smarmy as it is, it’s not indulgent – the songs come at you fast and smack and are quite heavy, not to mentioned riddled with taut, disciplined, fleeting prog rock ideas. Plus the production is gorgeously cozy, Grohl in particular, with Jones maybe even a bit too fat and lacking in definition, making the listener work to hear his brilliance, and the coursing Zep royalty that is never far from these alterno-metal cork-screwings.
