is prog grunge for the unpretentious, and it's funny as hell as the band settles into the arena-rock stylings that come naturally (singer-guitarist Josh Homme and bassist Nick Oliveri are two of rock's most elaborately accomplished musicians). The acid-rock-style "Millionaire" is a mild-mannered headbanger, as are the boogieish "Now One Knows" and "God." "Song for the Dead" has enough weighty speed metal to reanimate the subjects of its title.
The repetitive heavy pop of Queens' earlier work is manifest mostly in the second half of the album, on "Go With the Flow" and "Gonna Leave You," but only Homme and Oliveri would treat a power ballad such as "Mosquito Song" as if it were a folk tune, with guitar and plangent accordion giving way to a dignified march of strings, piano and martial drums. By emphasizing nothing -- vocals are growly and satanic or handsome and workmanlike as needed -- Queens push the songs themselves out front. Whether the ace metal is speedy or onerous (or both, as in the case of "Six Shooter," with its shrieking insanity), it is always deployed in the service of the eccentric song structures, and every track becomes a splendid, mysterious thing.
ARION BERGER
(RS 904 - September 5, 2002)
Armed with Dave Grohl's superhuman drumming and the amplifier-destroying chops of Dean Ween, the Queens return with a third album that pushes the stoner rock envelope the same way that Nirvana's Nevermind ripped grunge wide open.
