2 keepers
keeper avg .222
Going in expecting more of Like Clockwork, the previous album, turned out to be setting myself up for disappointment. While not necessarily compromised artistically, hit-maker of the stars Mark Ronson's influence shows the dance-y first third of the album, especially the disco opener "Feet Don't Fail Me." The significantly mellower middle of the album is kicked off by the subtly spacey "Fortress"****, nearly the only song on the album to have any sonic space, with wooly synth melodies filling in over Homme's lightly overdriven chords. In this laid-back third "Head Like a Haunted House" is the coked-out party crasher with a chorus of helium-inhaling soul singers, reminding me of the raucous, cluttered songs from when Nick Oliveri was still around (like "Quick and to the Pointless"). Coming near the album's end, the ambitious "The Evil Has Landed"**** resembles the aggressively angular experiments of Them Crooked Vultures more than the typical QOTSA; while the plot is completely lost in the song's multiple bridges, the verses where the punchy main riff leaves space at just the right point to accent Jon Theodore's skipping drum combinations are the catchiest part of the entire album. Although no track is a complete throwaway there's nothing with the slinky grace of "If I Had A Tail," or the tribal mystery of "My God Is The Sun," much less the Zeppelin-esque foreboding of "I Appear Missing" from Like Clockwork. And though I can't point to direct examples I feel like I've heard parts of "Un-Reborn Again" and "Hideway." So despite being a party album compared to the last it seems that something like intensity or menace is what appears missing.
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