Era Vulgaris
by Queens of the Stone Age
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 33
  3. Negative: 1 out of 33
  1. Village Voice
    30
    With the band sounding listless and drained of ideas, it starts trying anything.

Awards & Rankings

31
#31 Most Discussed Album of 2007
36
#36 Most Shared Album of 2007

User Reviews

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User Score
8.4

Universal acclaim- based on 233 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 205 out of 233
  2. Mixed: 19 out of 233
  3. Negative: 9 out of 233
  1. TomB
    Nov 30, 2009
    10
    The best album of the decade. I know it's a weak decade but I would rank this album along side Surfer Rosa, Siamese Dream, and Daydream The best album of the decade. I know it's a weak decade but I would rank this album along side Surfer Rosa, Siamese Dream, and Daydream Nation. The riff for 3s and 7s reminisces of the lone, cutting perfection of the opening seconds of Smells Like Teen Spirit.… Full Review »
  2. Leboyo56
    Oct 8, 2017
    10
    Almost BY FAR my favorite album ever. I hated it at first, but it is the thing that first got me into mainstream rock, after first hearing,Almost BY FAR my favorite album ever. I hated it at first, but it is the thing that first got me into mainstream rock, after first hearing, and eventually near-perfecting, 3's and 7's on Guitar Hero III. I am now learning to play 3's and 7's on RockSmith, you know... real guitar :D

    This album artwork truly speaks the content of the album in every way a random piece of art slapped onto the front slip of the plastic case for any album SHOULDN'T. What I mean for that is, it speaks the album so well, that its message is deceptively simple.
    So, two sleazy-looking...um...light bulbs smoking cigs and hopping around on detached limbs (and a crutch) and struggling to take one more puff?

    Well, after cross-examining the titles of a few songs and their lyrics... such as "Turnin' on the Screw" featuring the phrase, 'The jury's in, verdict: RETARDED. I'm so tired, and I'm wired, too. I'm a mess, I guess I'm...turnin' on the screw."

    and "I'm Designer" using an example of the hilarity involved in being a nonchalant male-prostitute as a euphemism for why selling out isn't always as bad as it may seem... coupled with explodingly loud rhythm guitar and drum-duo riffs, repetitive and crunchy yet hypnotic and psychedelic beats, along with impossibly randomly-placed yet ear-piercingly blissful guitar solos, this album is almost the definition of being thrown into a blender or a serrated trash compactor, being pulled out by an industrial vacuum which rips your outstretched arms off, and letting you fall back into the pit of despair all the while an onlooking group of stoners laugh at you, before realizing they lost their best friend...

    You see, there are two songs that make this album 'whole'. I do not like the two songs with as much of the passion behind the 150x-replayed and reshuffled playlist I have that includes all the OTHER songs, but these two songs... "Make it Wit' Chu" and "Suture up Your Future" ... they are the meat of this album. One is a slow blues-rock inspired melody that truly is a love song at its weirdest, rife with the band's inside-joke of spelling and grammatical errors and eyebrow-raising high-pitched vocals when you least expect them...while the latter is a bass heavy but thoroughly soft-rock delving masterpiece that I can't help but only want to analyze the lyrics to a fuller extent someday.

    When those two songs at times come up in a row at the very end of my playlist, and my music-high is coming to a close, I realize...with all this amp-smoke I have consumed and all this burned grass (straight out of Woodstock's earliest hard rock performance mishaps) I have been inhaling up to this point, 36 minutes or so into the album... I look down at my body and see I am almost figuratively skin and bones. With a heavy sigh, I don't hit the 'skip' button twice or load a new playlist, I get ready for the nutrition I have never yearned for from this kind of band, but, come to think of it... know I NEED after all the draining cynicism, sarcasm, irony, and chainsaw rip-roaring to the ear drums that were the past 11 songs.

    This is Era Vulgaris. This is the kind of blatant, yet subtly humored and layered offenses that your parents (no matter your or their age) will always wind up glaring at you awkwardly with no words spoken, just a general air of understanding floating somewhere between the groups' seats that begs to explain that this is what will always separate your generation from theirs. Is it desensitization? Is it laughing at the singer or lyricist's sung problematic lifestyle, of which they wrote down into musical form anyway wanting to wholeheartedly embrace the crazy **** this album is? Those two questions are the exact same, I'm just being pedantic again.

    This album in one phrase, other than magnifico to me, is: Desensitization... FOR THE WILLING MASSES

    And that's why I love it, and drew my unskilled heart out for it. My ears melted off leaving reptilian-esque holes in my head in the process, but eh. Van Gogh didn't need to listen much more either once he knew what perfection was.    … Full Review »
  3. abc123efg456hij
    Sep 13, 2017
    8
    A lot of great guitar work and compositional effort here despite the often unresolved tangents. I like more of this than I like "LikeA lot of great guitar work and compositional effort here despite the often unresolved tangents. I like more of this than I like "Like Clockwork." My favorite tracks are "Turnin' on the Screw" "Sick, Sick, Sick" "Into the Hollow" "Misfit Love" "Make It wit Chu" "3's & 7's" and "Suture Up Your Future." A shift in direction that works more often that it doesn't, and continues to rock hard and move you.… Full Review »
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