Album: Queens of the Stone Age

There's an ambition about Era Vulgaris that sets Queens of the Stone Age apart from their hard rock peers. It's not just the more thoughtful content in songs like the ironic "I'm Designer", for Josh Homme is one of the more imaginative guitarist/arrangers in rock, always taking the interesting route to a melody's resolution. Check the way he opens the album with an intriguing choral discord, before a trademark QOTSA robot-rhythm riff drops in to power "Turning On the Screw" along, the blend of Homme's mild vocal and his industrial-strength guitars recalling early Cream. Similar references are suggested throughout, from the sinister charm of late-period Doors in "Suture Up Your Future" to the garage-punk bite of early Love in "3s & 7s", while the martial thunder and waspish guitar renders "Run Pig Run" as a bizarre cross between Frank Zappa and The White Stripes. Most crucially, this is hard rock informed by the spirit of Joy Division, its energetic pulse powered by a heart of darkness.

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'Turning On the Screw', 'Run Pig Run', 'I'm Designer', '3s & 7s'