Queens of the Stone Age released its ninth studio album “Perfecth” last Friday, and frontman Josh Homme says he is embracing imperfection in his songwriting after having a difficult year.
This year, Homme struggled with health issues, a cancer diagnosis and divorce, and said he took writing this album to reflect how imperfect life can be.
“I’ve been anything but perfect. And I’ve had moments where even performing and doing this job has confused me, frightened me, angered me. But it’s always, at the end of the day, been at the forefront of how I’ve unstuck myself, how I’ve sort of freed myself from some of the darker moments in my life,” Homme said in an interview with NPR.
At first glance, the album seems silly and unserious, with a song titled “Where the Goth Girls at?” which was a shocking title to a lot of fans at first. However, with the exclusion of songs where Queens of the Stone Age made fun and humorous choices, the album has a lot of moments with deeper meaning.
The song is ridiculous on the surface but actually dives into themes of death and mortality, which makes for a particularly interesting creative choice.
The song “Insignificant Other” has a groove and bouncy guitar reminiscent of The Rolling Stones, and tackles themes of love and breakup. The song feels intimate and personal, with lines like “We both let go. I’m so broken, left unspoken for.”
Additionally, “From the Cliff” is an acoustic track with a beautiful melody and lyrics that are also about love. The song has a unique chord progression and stands out on the album as a slower, stripped-down track with layered melodies and an eerie Mellotron hum.
The album is a little whiplash-inducing, as it does switch heavily from goofy pop-rock songs with ridiculous lyrics to tasteful and intentionally meaningful ones. However, this arguably keeps it entertaining and enticing, because you don’t know what to expect next. Homme’s idea of imperfection for the album really seeps through when you’re hearing so many different types of sounds and ideas on one album.
For example, the song “Sunday” is jumpy and electric with David Bowie-adjacent vocals, while “Phantom Limb” is more atmospheric and falls back on a lot of the band’s classic songwriting styles.
The final song on the album, “Run Away from the Mob,” feels restless and leaves the album on an enigmatic note, but this is usual for the band’s overall sound. The song lets the tension of the album build up at the end to a closing guitar solo and layered vocal coda.
The album overall is not as heavy as some of Queens of the Stone Age’s previous music, so it is something new for fans to listen to, while possibly attracting new audiences. As lyrically intimate and sonically interesting as the album is, it definitely doesn’t live up to some of the band’s classics such as “Songs for the Deaf” and “Era Vulgaris.”
Rating of 2.5/5 for this album