Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.
Read this month’s album reviews here, here, here, and here.
Queens of the Stone Age
Perfecth
Matador Records
I never asked to see Josh Homme’s toes, but then the Queens of the Stone Age frontman sauntered down my timeline in a pinstripe suit and a pair of flip-flops and here we are.
The “Ginger Elvis” turned heads with his runway debut at Ann Demeulemeester’s Paris Fashion Week show recently, with Stereogram calling him a “silver fox”—again, not something I expected to see. On the band’s Instagram, Alexa Chung posted a heart-eyes emoji, while other fans said things like “as a 40-year-old man, I never thought I could get pregnant, let alone from a picture, but here we are,” and, simply, “I guess I’m gay now.”
The 53-year-old singer-songwriter came up in the desert rock scene, so I guess he’s used to thirst. And of course, he’d already been the subject of a viral post asking, “OK, but how did we go from this to this,” with a photo from the early 2000s next to one of his current face card. It’s funny how this sort of post cycle always seems to take place just before a band’s new record drops, but I guess it’s good to have something to talk about, because QOTSA’s ninth album is, as their material goes, a little unremarkable.
Look, you do not, under any circumstances, “need” to “study” Homme’s glow-up. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s been quite so much speculation over his appearance since the news that he’d stolen The Distillers’ Brody Dalle away from Rancid’s Tim Armstrong hit my schoolyard friendship group like a Love Island bombshell. To a 15-year-old boy, it was inconceivable that she would choose him over her husband, a man who looked like a pet rat whose child owner has scribbled all over him with a marker pen (it’s cool that he put him in a hat, though).
Homme and Dalle’s divorce and subsequent custody battle appear to have had the kind of acrimony that teens would find easy to parse. This record, much like its stronger predecessor, In Times New Roman…, relitigates the split, looking at “loves that break you beyond survival and the loves that put you back together.” It comes at a time when the other big conversation around the band remains whether it’s still “OK” to listen to them. And there are probably some who find this question easier to look past since Homme activated DILF mode.
In some ways, this is the logic of looksmaxxing (that attractiveness is akin to goodness), and it’s funny to see that none of us are outside of it—even one of the most accomplished rock acts of the 21st century. Still, there are plenty of moments on Perfecth where the five-piece lock in and show why they could never be considered low-tier normies. And by its conclusion, the record reaches toward a revelation that true beauty is found in the struggle.
Now, will you please put some socks on?
6/10
KYUSS CENA
Nickelback
Everything Under The Sun
Virgin Music Group
The singularity is coming for everything you believe in, and Chad Kroeger is our only hope. The other day, I watched a deepfake of an interpreter singing along with “Wet Ass Pussy”. Soon, there was a “Nickelwap” edit set to the tune of their 2008 track, “Something in Your Mouth”. Until recently, gooning over the OnlyHands girl would’ve seemed like the most shameful thing in the world, but now it feels like knowing the name of a Nickelback track that’s not “How You Remind Me” is somehow worse than cranking it to an AI-generated sign-language interpreter. And here are 12 more songs that are guaranteed to make women go limp and men get dry. As the AI psychosis comes on hard, maybe there’s comfort to be found in knowing there’s still some music so bad only a human could be behind it.
0/10
CARDI B. YEATS
DIIV
Zirp!
Fantasy
As this record was readied to hit the market, frontman Zachary Cole Smith started dressing like the mememan from r/wallstreetbets. In his suit and tie, he went before investors to launch the New Alternative, a genre for “music’s optimized VC-funded super deluxe remixed AI-enhanced algorithmically perfected wild west.” DIIV have taken stock of “our post-capitalist hellscape” and, with the help of producer / hyperpop CEO A. G. Cook, they’re sharing a new product engineered for mass appeal; as they say, “A million streams is great, a billion even better, and a trillion well within reach.” Yes, that’s right—this record is stonks.
7/10
SEAFOOD BUFFETT
Silverwing Killer
Desperate Struggle
1000% Triad Funded
When I heard this lot were “1000 percent triad funded,” I just smiled and politely nodded, appreciating the commitment to an aesthetic; I didn’t think for a moment that the industrial duo’s new EP might actually be co-signed by the Chinese mafia. But what if, beneath that giant New Year dragon puppet, this is what the syndicate foot soldiers have all got on blast as they dance through the streets on their way to extort protection money from neighborhood businesses? I mean, I don’t mind—I can respect the way things are done around here; I’ll just shut up and keep buying my dim sum until the boss pays up for a full-length release.
8/10
CRISPY FUCK
WHY?
Oh Golly / Yes Lord
Waterlines
Look, I get it. I also struggle to keep track of Yoni Wolf and all of his musical projects. But the number of times I’ve been playing one of his spectacularly crooked pop songs and been asked, “Who’s this by?”—and when I’ve responded excitedly, pleased to have someone else to share in my enthusiasm, they’ve looked at me with consternation and replied, “Because I want to know!” Indeed, if you’re looking for a reason for their apparent absence from the endless conversations about this century’s best music, then having one of the all-time most confounding monikers is probably the most obvious. But perhaps this is about to change, as they’ve got together the most extensive list of collaborators in their history to provide an answer for all my confused friends: It’s the best damn band whose name you’ve never known.
8/10
GEMINIMA KIRKE
PISS
you made me / skin on linen
Sub Pop
Some days it’s hard not to feel like a replicant. I often look at the world and ask myself: ‘Are we born for violence or made by it?’—an idea that comes to life on this jagged and uncomfortable debut record. This Vancouver four-piece smash together punk, poetry, sound collage, and performance art to interrogate how experiences shape and deform the self. It all reaches a head with a slowcore track, “blocking a scene you can’t remember,” a fragmented rehearsal for a confrontation that is repeatedly interrupted by trauma and comes across as halfway between an EMDR session and a Voight-Kampff test. This album is a powerful and unpredictable creation, which, just like that scene in Blade Runner, may well crush your skull.
9/10
VLADIMIR POUTINE
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The post VICE Album Reviews, October 30: Queens of the Stone Age, Nickelback, DIIV, and More appeared first on VICE.
