Them Crooked Vultures - Page 2

Wow, are we really getting into a heated argument over this? It's just a fun rock n roll album, doesn't warrant all the anger and internet tough guy posturing. And you're not even debating the merits of the album itself, you're arguing about whether or not it sounds like another album. I know this is the internet, but come on.

Calm down, fellas.

Dan: Oliveri definitely made QOTSA poppier, but I think it's telling that he didn't have any involvement in writing "No One Knows," which was cowritten by Homme and Mark Lanegan and hasn't done anything worth two shits since he got booted from QOTSA. And no, luring Kyuss members back into a studio under the pretense of "jam sessions" (like he did for Mondo Generator) doesn't count.

I think the music has changed because Homme doesn't want to be in the spotlight. As TCV proves, he still has the chops to compose killer riffs, but he isn't turning them into four-minute radio hits. If he wanted that that he would accept the lucrative offers to reform Kyuss or wouldn't have followed up his greatest mainstream success with a concept album about folklore. Hell he wouldn't have cut the eponymous track off of Era Vulgaris, which I think is one of the catchier songs he's written since SftD.

Tomas: I really can't see SftD comparisons with TCV unless you count "Mind Eraser, No Chaser." Grohl's drums are much lower in the mix and not nearly as flashy. TCV is expounding upon 70's cock rock cliches, so I think some of it sounds like Lullabies to Paralyze, particularly "Spinning in Daffodils." SftD is desert rock, which owes a lot more to punk and metal.

Untwist your panties there little lady, your glasses are steaming up for no good reason.

Anthony's point was that if Vultures sounds like QOTSA (and with Homme out front it was always going to to some extent) then it's a more recent album than SFTD, and I think the same thing. The reason I think that is because post-Oliveri QOTSA has been less of an animal, the song-writing and playing sounds more calculated and vibe of the albums less unhinged, less punk, less pop, and less brutal.

Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme wrote 10 of the 15 songs on SFTD together and Nick sings lead vocal on four (one shared) of them. Oliveri doesn't only write on bass, he writes on guitar (often acoustic). He writes lyrics and melodies. He sometimes sings in a howling punk rage (Six Shooter, Millionaire), sometimes sweetly pop-tastic (Another Love Song, Gonna Leave You), with a significantly greater range in his delivery than Homme.

For some reason (celebrity being the most likely culprit) a large majority of music fans see SFTD as being the way it is in comparison to other QOTSA records is because Dave Grohl was on board. No doubt his spirit is in there but the far, far more important reason for SFTD being the way it is, is Nick Oliveri. On the plus side the fact that so many underestimate Oliveri's impact on R and SFTD means they still have the glory of Mondo Generator's "A Drug Problem That Never Existed" album to discover, because anyone who's ever heard that and still doesn't get it is The Deaf. (Fuck yes that one counts Anthony.)

Sorry if this little misunderstanding blew up into something more wordy than it needed to be but you obviously didn't get it from the other post and it ruined your day so I'm spelling out what I thought was implied. Rock on.

(As for where I come from, since it matters to you, I played bass in one band but 98% of my songwriting and 80% of my playing has been as a rhythm guitar player. You're projecting if you think I'm calling the music flat and uninteresting if there's no bass player involved, my long time love of The White Stripes tells me all I need to know about that.)

I mean, this album is pretty good (and came out before Nick was fired from QOTSA), but what, 1/3 of the songs are from the Desert Sessions? Come on. I'm not going to get into a tiff over Oliveri, but his output since getting fired from QOTSA has been lacking, to say the least.

Oh yeah dude, for sure, I make no argument that Nick is not a wreck and has a very questionable track record (both musically and as a human being) from that time until now, I just mean he more than proved his worth as a songwriter on more than just the QOTSA albums that he co-wrote with Homme. The fact a bunch of those tracks come from Desert Sessions doesn't change the fact that Oliveri had a very significant hand in crafting them. The guy had musical chops way beyond being just a bass player.

(If there's any confusion it's probably because that bracketed crack about "yes it counts" I only edited in afterwards, because I didn't see your post at first. I have a habit of opening Firefox tabs of all the threads I want to read and then leaving them open for too long so when I finally read a post and then respond I miss posts that have been made in the meantime. I'm stupid like that.)

Have to say I'm not sure dropping one of the stronger tracks from an inconsistent album was a particularly bright idea. I get that it doesn't really match the style of the other songs, but then neither does Make It Wit Chu.

Lullabies also relegated one of the standouts to bonus track status for no clear reason. That said, even though I think it would've been better with a few songs dropped and a few added, I think that one is a badly underrated album. It's almost nothing whatsoever like the previous ones, but it's full of great dark, soulful rock songs. The band lost a number of things with Oliveri but I don't think the touch of humanity was one of them - Lullabies feels to me like the most personal album Homme's been involved in.

As for TCV, I don't think SftD comparisons are unfair (and the album cover practically invites them), but if it's "Songs for the Deaf 2" i'd say it's in the sense of it being a continuation and evolution of what they did on that album, rather than a straightforward copy of it. I mean, both albums are just basically trying to put out some good no nonsense hard rock at the end of the day.

Scumbag Blues: Josh Homme finally goes full-on Cream.

His voice definitely does have a Jack Bruce-ish sound to it when he sings in that register.

Only managed to listen to about half so far. But so far, me likee! New Fang is the only one I wasn't so hot on so far.

LOVING Scumbag Blues.

Yeah, I still skip over New Fang whenever I listen to this. The intro with Josh's first few lines just strikes me as sort of Aerosmith-y.

I had the exact opposite reaction to New Fang. I think its just awesome. [eta] Nothing wrong with early Areosmith! The 80s stuff is shit.

Probably my favourite song on the album.

I'm also digging No One Loves Me & Neither Do I an awful lot.

In case you missed it: Here's their entire performance from Austin City Limits.

So good to see Grohl back on the drumkit again.

That ACL set is definitely worth a watch. I caught their show here in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and it was a good time for all. Sold out show at The Tabernacle here; All The Saints were the opening band.

At one point, Jones plays a keytar! The crowd was chanting for it, "KEY-TAR! KEY-TAR!"

Quote of the evening came from Josh: "We don't play no encores for no man or woman, living or dead." (and they didn't.)

It's a totally solid album, the one two punch of Scumbag Blues and Bandolieros is fantastic, Grohl really shines on those two, especially Bandolieros. It's good to see Grohl behind the drumkit again, Reptiles was the most Led Zeppelin-esque song on the album, I really hope they do another one.

I'm pretty sure they're in the midst of recording sessions right now.

fuck yeah I could go for another one of these. I'd still like to see another QOTSA album at some point but yeah this is cool too

I really liked this album, and thought Era Vulgaris was a nice return to form after Lullabies, which wasn't even bad, just a bit disappointing. Homme is really on a roll right now, looking forward to the next album by Queens and TCV.

I'd say TCV's lyrics are not very good but the music is aces.

Which pretty much goes for most of the bands the music of TCV is inspired by.

On Letterman tonight Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra played Scumbag Blues through the first commercial break.

Bought my tickets for their Indy date in May.

I'm finally going to see Grohl behind a drum kit in person.