When a band releases a new studio album after six years, it is often worth mentioning. When Queens Of The Stone Age releases a new album after six years, that is world news. Since emerging from the depths of the desert in the late 1990s, Queens Of The Stone Age has grown into a band of epic proportions. The commercial (and according to many also artistic) highlight was the album Songs For The Deaf
… from 2002. The strength of that album was in the balance. Not only heavy desert rock riffs and not only hit sensitive melodies performed with very hard guitars. The balance, that's what it's all about. Without being a second Songs For The Deaf,… Like Clockwork has the balance that ensures that the album will reach many year-end lists. Memorable Beatlesk melodies drenched in greasy guitar sound: present. Scorching hot bass grooves with an endlessly repetitive vocal line: not present. What then offers a counterbalance to all potential radio bangers? They are ballads like The Vampyre Of Time And Memory and Like Clockwork. Ballads indeed. So intense, so sensitive, Adele can take a hit. Apparently this is also Queens Of The Stone Age. Classic in the making. (HF)more