Queens of the Stone Age [Reissue]

Now reissued and remastered, those principals are still sound: classic riffs and also more toothsome and unswinging structures, what ch are nice, especially when they stop. [Apr 2011, p.94]

Homme has gone on to make sexier records, but for sheer creepy sensuality QOTSA is the definitive article. [Apr 2011, p.112]

When Homme hums that "words are weightless here on Earth because they're free" over dense space swirl, you hope gravity never takes hold.

Comparing the two albums side-by-side, you can hear a nice tonality in the re-release, a sharper, crisper quality that just wasn't holding up in the 1998 version. However, part of QOTSA's vital sound is the thickness of Josh Homme's guitar, the fuzz and grain that permeates from each riff and solo. That is still present, it's just a more precise distortion.

Other changes of note are a full remaster, which has actually made a palpable difference to the plumpness of the bass in songs like 'Hispanic Impressions', and three extra tracks, all released on split EPs prior to this album coming out. They haven't ruined it or anything daft, but also aren't cooking at the level of most of the actual album.

It's not often that padding out an already hefty album actually improves it, but in the Queens' case, the revised tracklist provides a more accurate portrait of how the band molded its mercurial Desert Sessions experiments into chiseled hard-rock monoliths.

The best songs are really good; and the other songs sound sort of like their best songs, just slightly less good. And everything remains in this meaty swath of goodness.

All the elements are here, though they're on the darker end of the coal/diamond spectrum, and the mostly unremarkable bonus tracks don't do the set any favors. But when it's good, it's damn good, and through the murk, there's the sound of a band that would one day be truly great.