2000 - Feedback: Queens of the Stone Age Review
by unknown
Half a world away from the shiny pop choruses and testosterone-crazed experimentation of "Rated R", their 1998 debut album takes you back to the bloodied roots of the Queens Of The Stone Age experience. Low on traditional assets such as hummable tunes and memorable lyrics, the band instead deliver a slow-motion dusty bludgeoning that brings to mind a much heavier Built To Spill. And, not exactly being the kind of album to meet the listener halfway, "Queens Of The Stone Age" requires serious acclimatisation before you begin to appreciate that there might actually be something great going on amidst the rigorous riffing. Since all eleven tracks are essentially cut from very similar cloth it's difficult to pick highlights, but the inner turmoil of "Mexicola" and the early-Zep-on-downers that is "You Can't Quit Me Baby" are especially fine. This is brutal, uncompromising and almost perversely original music, as close to "Rated R" as "Bleach" is to "Nevermind", and none the worse for it.

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