Albums are graded on a five-point scale of "Awful-Eh-Good-Great-Classic". I'm highly biased, so don't take it too seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Queens of the Stone Age

[#] ...Like Clockwork (2013)

When death is in the air, you keep it brief.

Reviewed April 24, 2021

(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read a wordier and possibly less accurate version of my feelings on this album.)

The venerable Queens of the Stone Age started their third decade in existence at the end. Whether it was drugs or whether it was knee surgery, for a few minutes, Josh Homme was dead, and the resulting depressive spell informs the oil black finish on ...Like Clockwork. The groaning, metallic tone that made Era Vulgaris such a cracking listen is gone here (though opener "Keep Your Eyes Peeled" attempts to bring the atonal acidity back to less cracking results), in its place a boomy, bassy, bold mission statement that feels like the most concise and perhaps human record QOTSA had made up to that point. There's no hour long desert radio worship here, no witches being burnt and wolves to eat little girls—just that bit of vulnerability and a nearly flawless tracklist.

"I want God to come/And take me home," Josh croons on the honest-to-God piano ballad on a Queens record "The Vampyre of Time and Memory", playing almost like a tragic villain backstory in its surroundings. ...Like Clockwork is cinematic in nature, going from grimy corners where light doesn't reach to desert vistas from track to track with expert timing. You get to enjoy the eerie, nocturnal spite of "If I Had a Tail" into the propulsive "Go With the Flow" update "My God is the Sun" and the teensy falsetto verses on "Fairweather Friends" exploding into vocal cameos from Trent Reznor and Elton goddamn John on the choruses, just to name a few. It's got a little something for everybody, a seductive straightforwardness for new fans of the band, and the much-publicized return of former Queens Mark Lanegan, Nick Oliveri, and Dave Grohl pounding those drums like they owe him money for the old timers. Like death itself, it's hard to miss, and it's a hell of a lot more fun.