If you watched last season's Californication and you wondered what an entire album by the fictional rocker Atticus Finch might sound like then Josh Homme has certainly offered his answer. This album is about as likeable as that character as well. Homme whose former band Kyuss was quiet innovative even though they certainly hadn't beaten bands like St. Vitus, Candlemass or Trouble to the title of Sabbath worshipers,put a different spin on it by adding a glaze of desert dust to their bong water. Queens of the Stone-age then released three really good albums before the just so-so "Lullabies to Paralyze" and then rather flat mis-step of "Era Vulgaris" ...well after five years in the making this album rocks even less than that one, in fact not at all. There is nothing remotely metal about it.
It appears Mr. Homme just discovered the Rolling Stones disco period and makes repeated attempts to replicate it when he's not slumbering his way into piano ballads. The album should open with the title track for despite being a yawning ballad contains the most accurate line "it's all down hill from here" which must be in reference to his career. So if you want to see what magazines or blogs are being paid off by record labels this is the test. Instead the album opens with one of it's only songs that feels like a complete thought "Keep Your Eyes Peeled" that's a much darker turn from "Era Vulgaris" and could have been a b-side to "Lullabies", it's lazy in a drug sluggish way rather than the majority of the songs which are just lazy in the I don't give a shit way. If they had taken this feel and run with it for the rest of the album it would have been an improvement.
"I Sat By the Ocean" sounds like a veiled cover of Honky Tonk Women, with the feel of the recycled bits of things they have already worn into the ground, the big difference being, the thin digital production that takes all heft from both guitar and bass.The low end is missing from the album leaving every thing sounded like 8 bit static. The Blundering balladry of Atticus Finch begins on "the Vampyre of Time and Space." the most vampiric thing about it is it sucks."Of I Had A Tail" gets to the Stones disco, with an over produced fuzzy chorus chorus that goes no where. The lead single "My God is the Sun" should rock but the production has compressed all the power right out of it . "Klaopsia" the ballads return with an obnoxious At the Drive in like choral punch. "Fair-weather Friends" goes back into the balladry leading into something that sounds like bad Guns N roses power balladry that transitions into a more progressive section thats a messy train wreck. "Smooth Sailing" is what Homme imagines Muse's take on Emotional Rescue might be. " I Appear Missing" is the other half way decent song on here, the chorus works really well for me though there is some wanding in the songs second half that might have grown on me if I intended on keeping this.
Not even the addition of Mars Volta drummer Jonathan Theodore can help this god awful mess, that begs the question what was Homme hearing in the play back while he sat in the studio and who were the jack asses stroking his ego to co-sign this garbage.I'm committed to listening to every album I review all the way through and by the sixth song it really got painful. It's a powerful case for illegal downloading as I couldn't wait to get home and delete this piece of shit from my hard drive I can only imagine how pissed I would be if I had actually paid for it. Ok this album fought hard for the 2 I'll give haven't heard something this bad since the new Ghost album which might even be better than this.
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