The latest vogue of supergroups might be overdone, but Them Crooked Vultures spew heavy rock worth listening to with their self-titled debut. At the cakehole is Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), on the drums Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), and the last of the vertices goes to Led Zeppelin’s bassist John Paul Jones; so yeah, this anticipated debut can’t be spinning crap. Not skimping out on time, most tracks flaunt a snaked 5 minutes (and up) tally. Opening with No One Loves Me & Neither Do I, raw and succinct, the album manages to keep itself distinct from its roots. Sure, there are traces of Zep in Caligulove, but the record might be a little more Cream than anything else. A chunk jam session, a chip instrumental, and a stroke of vamped sounds, the three play to lairy guitar riffs and brazened thumps, but word on the street is that Grohl brings out the real thunder for the live sets. “You may think me altruistic, Feel my dark hypnosis closing in, You won’t make it out.” Twisted, lyrics laced in solipsism, there is intensity to Homme’s warbles, but somehow in a curbed discipline. And the toxic romance of Interlude With Ludes, runs a verse of “On the goodship lolly-gag, LSD and bloody pile of rags, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, But I am…” The door shuts to my top track, Spinning In Daffodils, peeking from a piano melody are fuzzy guitars, and the malevolent “king of the zoo” pounces to “take one scalp at a time” and in the end, bows out, “gracefully out of view.”
Key Tracks: Spinning In Daffodils, Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up, Dead End Friends
Moods: Fiery, Intense, Brash, Visceral, Volatile, Cathartic
related
- Them Crooked Vultures Announces Second Album
- Them Crooked Vultures: Grohl’s New Super Group Performs
- Them Crooked Vultures Finally Announce Debut Album
