Review by Phil Rozier for MPM
Sadly, I’d read, or heard, unintentionally, that this latest piece of work from Queens of the Stone Age sounded a bit like David Bowie. I wish I hadn’t, because however hard you try not to listen to your own subconscious, once that thought’s been planted, it’s very difficult to unhear it.
How many of you like David Bowie, because of the fact that so many of you like David Bowie? Don’t get me wrong, I think Mr Bowie’s music is accomplished, and there are one or two tracks I’d happily sing along to. But am I a fan? I’m not, not a fan, but put it this way, I’ve never spent money on his records.
It’s a bit like a night down the pub. I like a glass of wine, I do, but more often than not I’d take a pint. Now imagine your favourite pub has been pouring you the same pint for nearly 30 years. A cold, fuzzy, desert-brewed pint that makes your head nod and your hips do things your knees complain about the next morning. Then one Friday you prop yourself up at the bar, and the landlord slides over… a glass of very nice red. Aged. Complex. Hints of blackberry, existential regret, and more than a little late 70s Bowie. It’s lovely. Genuinely lovely. But you came in for a pint.
That, in a slightly sticky nutshell, is my week with ‘Perfecth’, the ninth studio album from Queens of the Stone Age.
QOTSA have been rattling our fillings since the mid 90s, and 2026 marks thirty years of the band. ‘Rated R’, ‘Songs for the Deaf’, ‘…Like Clockwork’. Records that have soundtracked more of my motorway speeding than I’d care to admit to a magistrate. Josh, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore are back with nine new tracks, around 36 minutes, produced by Homme and Shuman and out now on Matador. It grew out of their 2025 Catacombs project, when they went underneath Paris and played stripped-back versions of their songs to an audience of actual skulls. Tough crowd. Although, in fairness, they don’t heckle.
It’s slower. It’s more emotional. It’s more experimental. It’s less ‘stick it on and lose your licence’, and more ‘put the kettle on, sit down and have a think about your life’.
Track 1, ‘It’s Only Love’. I’m braced. I’m standing on a rainy railway platform at midnight. Train horns, swirling wind, a battered old acoustic, and then strings curl in with an Eastern European, almost carnival feel. It ends with what genuinely sounds like being hit by a train. Not literally. I checked. The band are still here. It’s a twisted, beautiful opener, but it tells you straight away: this is not that kind of night.
‘Insignificant Other’ follows, and if this album has a hit, this is it. A slinky, smoky, nearly six-minute groove that struts rather than stomps. Apparently it’s only the second of two takes. Two takes! It takes me more than that to reverse the car into the drive. Is it a little long? Maybe. Do I care, while I’m shuffling round the kitchen in my socks? No.
Track 3, ‘Where The Goth Girls At?’, and there it is. Proper thumping bass. Jon Theodore absolutely battering the tubs. It’s tongue in cheek, it’s suburban, it’s got a massive chorus, and there’s a line about never feeling more alive than the day he nearly died, which, given Josh’s health scares over the years, lands a lot heavier than a song with this title has any right to.
Then ‘Mono’. Headphones are a must here, as sounds pan from ear to ear like a drunk wasp trapped in your skull. Jazzy clatter, strange synth stabs, and an ending that’s properly nightmarish. I listened to it on the sofa with the lights off, and at one point turned round to check nobody was standing behind me. I respect it more than I’d put it on at a barbecue. It’s the most ‘art’ this band have ever been, and it’s the clearest sign this album isn’t playing it safe.
Track 6, ‘Sunday’, and this is where that Bowie thought really kicks in. It’s originally from ‘Post Pop Depression’, the 2016 Iggy Pop album that Josh co-wrote and produced, which owed plenty to the late 70s, when Bowie was producing Iggy’s records in Berlin. Here it gets a disco beat, and one review described bits of it as a twisted version of Kiss’s ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’. Which is the most brilliantly wrong thing I’ve ever heard, and they’re right. Troy Van Leeuwen has even said the idea of doing their own version came from the example Bowie set.
‘Easy Street’ is the fun one. Country singer Nikki Lane joins on vocals, there’s handclaps, a major key, falsetto, breezy synths, and some of the wittiest wordplay Josh has written. It was their first new music since 2023, and with Josh also popping up on a Shania Twain track this summer, I think we can safely say the man has discovered his inner cowboy.
And then the closer, ‘Run Away From The Mob’, featuring none other than Dave Grohl behind the kit. It starts off jazzy and loose, and you think, ok, here we go again, more red wine. And then, in the last minute or so, it erupts. Full-blast rock. Grohl hitting like he’s owed money. Josh wailing over the top. After 30-odd minutes of fine wine, the landlord finally pours me the pint. And it tastes all the better for the wait.
You can’t help but be aware of the circulating mixed opinions, and I think some reviews will praise the variance, whilst fans will perhaps want for a nod in the direction of the origins of the band. And that’s the thing about music, isn’t it? It’s subjective. It’s personal. None of those people are wrong. Some days I want a glass of red. Most days, if I’m honest, I want the pint.
Live is where it might have the biggest impact. Put ‘Mono’ on in a sweaty field at a festival and I’m not sure the pit knows what to do with itself. As a studio record, this is a serious, mature, sit-down listen, and I don’t think many of these songs will light up a stage the way ‘Go With The Flow’ or ‘Little Sister’ do.
So, is it any good? Yes. It is. The musicianship is superb. Theodore’s drumming, Troy and Dean’s textures, Shuman’s grooves, and Josh’s voice, which has never sounded more exposed or more honest.
But it’s not the album a lot of fans will have been expecting. If you came for the fuzzy, punky, indie-rock swagger that made you fall in love with this band, you’ll find it in the final minute of the final track, and in bits of ‘Goth Girls’. The rest is something else entirely: slower, darker, more emotional, more experimental, and much more grown-up. And that’s their right. Artists don’t owe us the same record twice. Josh and co have earned the right to follow their noses, and I’d much rather a band take a risk than churn out ‘Songs for the Deaf 2: Deafer’.
My advice? Don’t play it in the car. Don’t play it at a party. Wait until it’s dark, pour yourself something nice, stick your headphones on, and give it three proper listens. It’ll creep up on you. Then go and see them live, because on stage, Queens of the Stone Age are still very much the pint.
The Perfecth album is out now.
https://QOTSA.lnk.to/Perfecth
