Queens Of The Stone Age
– In Times New Roman…
No one expected Josh Homme and crew to come back whispering. In Times New Roman… doesn’t explode out of the gate so much as it stomps in, head high, boots muddy, guitar in hand. This is Queens of the Stone Age at their most sardonic, most bruised, and maybe their most focused in years. It’s not polished, it’s pressurized—full of sneers, scabs, and sludgy brilliance. The desert is still their church, but this time the sermons are darker, bitter, and more personal.
Homme’s songwriting has always carried a whiff of the cryptic, but here, the shadows feel heavier. Grief, anger, mortality—they’re baked in, not pasted on. But rather than wallow, he howls through it with a smirk. Guitars twist and lurch like wounded machines, drums clatter with mechanical precision, and melodies poke their heads up from the gloom like weeds in cracked pavement. It’s heavy, but it breathes. The production doesn’t smooth anything out—it lets the tension simmer until the whole thing feels like it might snap. And that edge? That’s where QOTSA live.
There’s no easy hit here. No “Go With the Flow,” no “No One Knows.” And that’s fine—this isn’t an album for radio or TikTok or driving with the windows down. This is for 3 a.m. headphones, cracked knuckles, and too many thoughts. It’s deliberate and dense, the kind of record that rewards a second spin with a smirk and a punch in the ribs.
Choice Tracks
Paper Machete
A scorcher right out of the gate. Homme spits venom through clenched teeth, his vocals slashing through a riff that sounds like it was dragged across asphalt. There’s resentment and swagger fused tight—like a breakup letter soaked in kerosene. It’s lean, mean, and very Queens.
Negative Space
This one lumbers and lingers. The rhythm section holds a groove that’s hypnotic in its repetition, while Homme dials in a melody that never quite resolves, and that’s the point. There’s a bleak beauty here—sharp corners dressed in echo and tension.
Emotion Sickness
The lead single, and it plays like a nervous breakdown disguised as a glam-rock shuffle. The falsetto sneaks in under the buzzsaw guitars, adding a weird grace to the chaos. It’s catchy in the way a hangover sticks with you—uncomfortable but unforgettable.
Obscenery
Slinks rather than stomps. It’s sexy, in a filthy, leather-jacket-left-in-the-sun-too-long kind of way. The bass line walks with a limp, the vocals drip sarcasm, and everything feels just slightly wrong—in the best way possible.
Straight Jacket Fitting
Closing track and a slow-burn epic. Feels like a band exorcising something they’ve been carrying too long. Shifts and morphs, starts with a hush and ends in a controlled detonation. It’s not just a finale—it’s a statement. A slow dance at the end of the apocalypse.
In Times New Roman… isn’t built to comfort. It’s a jagged little love letter to collapse, wrapped in fuzz, feedback, and a flicker of wit. Queens of the Stone Age didn’t return to play it safe—they came back to remind you that rock can still be ugly, honest, and magnetic as hell.