Queens Of The Stone Age: Ranking Their Game-Changing Albums
The face of modern rock music would not be the same with Josh Homme's little world-slaying pet project - but of all their drastically different albums, which is the best?
With Queens of the Stone Age, Josh Homme achieved real longevity in the wake of stoner-rock cult concern Kyuss, transposing that band's grungy style into sleeker, sleazier jams for his own band's eponymous debut. Over the last sixteen years (and with an ever-changing line-up), Homme has taken to creating some of the most iconic hard rock albums of modern times, and in doing so has inspired a wealth of other contemporary guitar groups to scale bigger and bolder heights. Although the Queens have never fully revolutionised their sound, every one of their six studio albums is a distinctive entity, each possessing its own sonic identity, stylistic breadth, and channelling of disparate influences to varying degrees. Charting the bands progression is equally fascinating and impressive, especially when considering the central role of Homme himself. After building QotSA into a unified gang during the early noughties, the bands most recent material finds the hulking frontman facing his more personal demons, and consequently producing some of his most soulful work to date. Having had almost a year to embed itself fully in the consciousness of fans, its worth examining ...Like Clockwork against the bands five previous studio albums and considering how they stack up against one another in terms of how they hold up in terms of long-term qualities. From the "weakest" to the strongest, here are the albums of QotSA in all their crunchy, crazed glory.