headlessparrot's Full Review: Rated R by Queens Of The Stone Age
The majority of the world’s music fans - at least those who are capable of intelligent thought - have become rather sick and tired of labels. And I’m not talking about record labels (although they’re an equally appropriate target for disdain); I’m talking about the labels bestowed upon bands that represent their style. These are well and good for record stores and the big record companies, giving them a much easier system of categorization, but they’re really no good for music fans. Grouping certain bands in with others often seems hardly appropriate, and some bands defy musical styles of any kind. Nu-metal, the term used to describe Limp Bizkit, Korn and their ilk became the word used to describe dozens of other acts with only the loosest of ties to the genre, and it resulted in their suffocation and death. Which would be a shame, I suppose, if any of these bands was really any good - nu-metal or not.
Queens Of The Stone Age, for example, are a band that defies a lot of categorization, being bogged down by a title that hardly seems adequate to describe their music. At one time, however, that title was in fact quite appropriate. And while the band has since grown and expanded, the Queens Of The Stone Age’s sophomore album Rated R, is a prime example of a subgenre known to many as ‘stoner rock.’
Queens Of The Stone Age, or QOTSA as I’ll use for abbreviation purposes, earned the title of stoner rock almost by default. The reason for that label came as a result of the band’s sordid past. Kyuss, often recognized as the ‘queens’ of stoner rock, disbanded in 1995, planting the seeds for QOTSA. Joshua Homme and Nick Oliveri, both long-time members of the aforementioned Kyuss, almost immediately put together a new group, the aptly titled Queens Of The Stone Age.
Originally consisting of Homme (guitar, vocals) Oliveri (bass, vocals), Alfredo Hernandez (drums) and Dave Catching (piano, keyboards, guitars), the group’s first release was a split record with another group known as Beaver. That was followed up by an energetic and fiery self-titled full-length debut, and the band began to grow its following. For the first several years of existence, Queens Of The Stone Age was a virtual revolving door as far as members went, with various notable members adding their touches to the band’s music in the early days (among them Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron). It wasn’t until after the band’s first release that membership began to stay consistent. Several other of rock’s finest jumped on board the group’s train just as it was leaving the station. Among them was Mark Lanegan, a friend of Homme’s and member of The Screaming Trees, while Hernandez was replaced on drums by the duo of Gene Troutman and Nicky Lucero. Essentially, the band had a surplus in members that while good for creating a unique sound, probably also created a shortage of beer money to go around. Hell, maybe that’s why the group’s subsequent album, the (also) appropriately titled Rated R (changed from the title II at the last moment) sounds so urgent - not to mention musically superior to its predecessor.
While the beer dilemma would be solved on the group’s third record with guest drumming by the inimitable Dave Grohl, Rated R hearkens back to a much more simple time, a time when the group members were many and the band was still searching for its place in the rock pantheon. Simply put, Rated R is an absolutely manic album with so much going on that it can be confusing at times. That may be because in addition to the group’s large membership, Rated R boasts an extremely long list of contributors, some of who have been staples in the music industry for years.
But why stoner rock? Well, while 2002’s Songs For The Deaf was a much more straightforward hard rock album, Rated R combines elements from all over the musical spectrum, creating a mishmash of guitar-based rock and wild psychedelic sounds. In actuality, though, Rated R is not so much a stoner rock album as it is a stoned rock album. At times, the listener is left with the impression that a given track was written and/or recorded while the band was under the influence of a variety of narcotics. In fact, it’s safe to say that a good thirty per cent of Rated R’s recording budget was allotted for a variety of barbituates, amphetamines, and general mind-altering substances. And probably detox as well, when all was said and done.
My reason for believing this is the completely off-the-wall approach of the record. Very disjointed and spacey at times and with frequent random tempo or song structure changes, Rated R sounds like only the product of a disjointed mind could. But despite the totally unnerving randomness of it all, the album works, sounds good, and consistently manages to rock on a number of levels.
The focus, for the most part on Rated R is the same as most other albums, building a great song around a catchy or powerful guitar riff. The songs expand outward from this base, with Troutman and Lucero providing thundering drum crashes and tremendous rhythm. Oliveri has a natural penchant for creating a solid groove on bass, and the vocals - whoever they’re sung by - always hit right on the mark. The bells and whistles, a the final layer, adding the sense of excessive stoned rock nostalgia by using trumpets, pianos and even a lap steel guitar. The end result, post-mixdown, and best heard with a good set of surround sound speakers, rotates between melancholy, relaxed and strung-out numbers with hard-rocking urgent and ultra-aggressive rockers.
While the title of stoner rock may not be appropriate any longer, it was quite an accurate way to describe the off-kilter genius of Homme and company that would result in yet another hype blitz. And, while I can see where the majority of critics praising Rated R are coming from, they’re a little off base. Rated R is definitely admirable and is a great album, but it also falters when the band tries to do too much. Again, there aren’t really any bad songs, but instead there are bad moments where a single element of a song seems to ruin the whole of it. The guitars, for the most part are gorgeous, as are the low-fi muddiness of the bass and the restrained groove that the drums seem to find.
If the tracks consisted of these elements for the most part, I wouldn’t have a problem. It’s when the drug-induced excess kicks in that things start to curdle a little. Songs randomly seem to run into one another, with one ending abruptly in mid-note before kicking right into the other. The listener, as a result, is left confused and disoriented, with little time to come down between tracks. The spacey, minute-long valleys that suddenly appear in the middle of heavy songs only occasionally succeeds in creating atmosphere. For the most part, we’re again left feeling slightly disjointed and the whole thing just seems awkward. The horns also seem to reek of excess, although they do add some texture to the sound, and random bits of in-studio dialogue, cool at first, begin to detract from the mood at some point. It occurs to me that the real problem here isn’t all these extra little Easter eggs in and of themselves, it’s the disjointed feeling created when you have upwards of nine musicians, many of whom either just joined or are studio musicians, playing together on a single track.
Stoner rock is the perfect way to describe Rated R’s opening track Feel Good Hit Of The Summer, a thunderous and crashing heavy metal number with a simple one line refrain of “Nicotine, valium, vicadin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol,” repeated endlessly over crashing drums and a fast, hard tempo. Assisted by ex-Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford, Homme delivers the vocals fiercely and with tremendous conviction, while guitars solo wildly in the background.
The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret finds a solid groove, delivering the album’s best track with a smug, laid-back approach. The song has an infectious melody, probably the reason it became the album’s first single and the hard rock anthem of the summer. Leg Of Lamb is also laid back, with Homme singing in a vaguely-falsetto tone over a measured and deliberate beat. Auto Pilot features Oliveri’s limited, but pleasant vocals, while the drug references abound on the almost tribal Better Living Through Chemistry, featuring spacey, hazy vocals that drift from one speaker to another. A reprise of the album’s opener is entertaining, but hardly necessary, while Quick And To The Pointless is an anathematic number with little coherence but a charged hard-rock atmosphere.
Lightning Song adds an acoustic flavour to Rated R, an instrumental that serves to lead into the album closer, the eight-plus minute I Think I Lost My Headache, a hard-rocker with an almost chanting, mantra-like feel to it.
For the most part, Rated R is an excellent album by a band getting their first glimpse of superstardom. The eccentricities and off-kilter moments aren’t enough to detract from an album filled with great riffs, solid grooves, and well thought out arrangements. The drug culture that seems to permeate the album may turn some off, but that’s why it’s Rated R - Restricted To Everyone, Everywhere, All The Time. Rated R is an effective glimpse at the history of one of the biggest hard rock acts that still hold any merit. The critics who praised this album as the next big thing had the right idea. They took it a little overboard, but regardless, Rated R is great.
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