Hullaballoo
Featured artist: QOTSA
Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme (lead vocals, guitar), with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar, backing vocals) and Joey Castillo (drums, percussion), alongside Michael Shuman (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Dean Fertita (keyboards, guitar, lap steel).
Formed after the dissolution of Homme's previous band, Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age developed a style of riff-oriented, heavy rock music. Their sound has since evolved to incorporate a variety of different styles and influences, including working with ZZ Top member Billy Gibbons and steady contributor Mark Lanegan, both of whom have contributed from genres such as blues and grunge respectively.
Current, Classic and Re-issue of the month
_Between The Buried & Me/Colors
A quick briefing of this North Carolina five piece shows a short but extremely successful career that has seen 3 full length albums which were received by fans and press alike with nothing but pure adulation. This adulation wasn't down to them being an easily marketable flash-in-the-pan fad band (hello Panic! At The Disco) that could be spread across the front cover of `Kerrang!' magazine week in week out, it was based upon an appreciation of pure musical mastery that brought in death metal, jazz, classical and countless other styles of music, all of which was then mixed into a seething, dissonant froth that exploded into your ears at every possible angle.
`Colors' is an album that would have to go to ridiculous lengths to wow us again, such was the force of their previous material. To put simply, it does everything Between The Buried And Me mastered in previous albums and then multiplies it by infinitum. It is simply staggering.
_Linkin Park/Hybrid Theory
It may be too cynical to assume Hybrid Theory changed its name to Linkin Park in order to appear right next to Limp Bizkit in your local record bin. But rock-rap workouts like "One Step Closer" and "Papercut" do make Linkin Park a comfortable fit with Fred Durst and his ilk. Producer Don Gilmore (Pearl Jam, Lit) and twin vocal threats Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda serve up industrial-strength rap and rock melodicism with equal aplomb on this debut effort. "Points of Authority" aims to sound like Trent Reznor mixing it up with Metallica, whereas guitarist Brad Delson's Edge-y harmonics help "In the End" and "Pushing Me Away" evoke a dark romanticism akin to A Perfect Circle. Curiously, the band gets by with no bass player, while sample-happy DJ Joseph Hahn's step into the spotlight on the instrumental "Cure For The Itch" suggests a potential for eclecticism that could help Linkin Park outlive its seemingly transient genre.
_Nine Inch Nails/Downward Spiral
It's easy to understand why Nine Inch Nails became the industrial band to break out of the techno ghetto and win a larger audience. Trent Reznor, who records the NIN albums almost entirely by himself (although he tours with a full band), tries very hard to pass himself off as an angry young man, but underneath the angst-ridden lyrics, pounding synths, and grating guitars is an irrepressible pop sensibility. On the second full-length NIN album, The Downward Spiral, Reznor builds his constructions of noise and gloom around warm, fuzzy melodies. On the album's first single, "March of the Pigs," for example, Reznor screams about swine lined up for slaughter amid guitars screeching in pain. Suddenly the guitars fall away to reveal the sensually throbbing rhythm track below; then that falls away to reveal a vocal-and-piano track that's as catchy as anything by Elton John. Because Reznor has a better handle on dynamics now, the melodic core is more obvious than ever.