10 Greatest Rock Instrumentals
5. Lightning Song - Queens of the Stone Age
Whenever you sit down with a Queens of the Stone Age record, you have a pretty good idea of what you are getting. Even though the band has tinkered with their sound over the years, each track has the same twisted melodicism of Josh Homme along with some of the meatiest chords in hard rock. On Rated R though, "Lightning Song" comes on and offers a completely different tone.
Coming just before the freakout of "I Think I Lost My Headache," this track was the one song on the record written by guitarist and producer Dave Catching. Rather than the pummeling chords that hit you like a sledgehammer, this breezy affair with acoustics is one of the most subdued cuts that the band would ever compose. Starting with just one riff, the song keeps adding on harmonic extensions until we see a vast sonic landscape.
Given what a big fan he was at the time, the somberness of this tune may have had some cross influence on Foo Fighter Dave Grohl when he cut the acoustic side of their double album In Your Honor. QOTSA had always been known as desert rock, but this song is the one track that feels like the pillowy oasis in the middle of the arid wasteland.