Queens Of The Stone Age - '...Like Clockwork' - Track By Track Analysis
Smooth Sailing Just as the production of the album was far from Like Clockwork (hence its ironic title) Smooth Sailing is far from smooth. A leering, sleazy sister to Keep Your Eyes Peeled, Homme pushes his vocal ability right to the limit with some lovely echoic falsettos against the roaring solos; I blow my load over the status quo he croons, harking back to the old days of QOTSA. This distorted stinger is one hell of a ride, and a perfectly petulant predecessor to the best track on the album I Appear Missing Invigorating, unsettling, poetic, poignant the most vulnerable Josh Homme has ever been, I Appear Missing is a journey through the mind and the soul, a personal study of the self and an intimate rendering of fading away down the rabbit hole of existence. Brought about directly from Hommes near-death experience, he tells of a prisoner on the loose disappearing into the desert of death pinned like a note in a hospital gown. The aching, impassioned chorus line shock me awake, tear me apart is utterly captivating and this immobilised brain-melting smorgasbord of emotional turmoil isnt just the longest track on Like Clockwork its the best. Like Clockwork If I Appear Missing is the comedown for this bipolar cheesecake of wrath and weakness, the closing title track is rock-bottom or so it would appear, although Hommes sobs that its all downhill from here might suggest that this particular pit is bottomless. Its achingly melancholic, a desperate and primal cry for help from a man who has lost all hope. It toys with the idea of aging (holding on to long is just fear of letting go) whilst fusing images of a frozen clock with the concept of Karma (not everything that goes around comes back around you know). The dying moments introduce a heart-wrenching violin arrangement a first for QOTSA and leave you with a very bittersweet taste. Its five-and-a-half-minute running time soars by, however, and provides a fitting conclusion to an album of remarkable depth both musically and lyrically, all shooting off from the life-changing experience of its frontman and the existential questions that it provoked. A tight, layered blend of the accessible and the abstract, Like Clockwork is an absolute modern classic one that deserves every ounce of critical acclaim it has received and nothing less.