Which is precisely why I recoil in horror when music is murdered for money. Record execs and radio playlists squeezing every last dollar from a dead horse, promoting copycat bands and jumping on the bandwagon. This is why there is music that I dislike... what makes it even worse is when other seemingly intelligent people seem to hold aloft these cash-cows as if they were something beautiful and expressive.
This is why when something good does come along, it cuts through all the shit like a chainsaw through a jellyfish. We may yet be saved.
Their second full length album should be out soon, and from what I've heard online it's every bit as good as the first but with a whole new level to it. The first album is a masterpiece and something you need to own. Initially bewildering but utterly captivating, it is a living, breathing thrashing and snarling animal of an album, wired through some heavy distortion and drip fed nothing but vitriol.
They are on a worldwide tour as I type this, so catch them if you can. Any fans of the album who hasn't seen them live is doing themselves a massive, massive discredit.
In recent news, the boys have famously ditched their stage uniform of black shirts and red ties, in an effort to distance themselves from wanky garage rock bands; The Captain is back on the drum stool; and Lance has been replaced by Don Devore.
Co-conspirators Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri have been at the helm of QOTSA since Josh first wrote and recorded the self-titled album in 1998. Only now, after their third album, are they getting the recognition they deserve. Every album has been fucking amazing, the rawness and consistency of the first album, the chemically skewed and paranoid schizophrenia of the second album (which is where Nick first got some vocal responsibilities and where Mark Lanegan first joined the band in the studio and on tour) and the truly great third album, which didn't leave my CD player for about three months.
The band have a fourth album on the way, and the next installment in Homme's Desert Sessions - volumes 9 and 10 - featuring among others P J Harvey and Ween, should soon be with us.
They are touring the UK in June, I got my tickets :)
Anyone who has only heard the last two singles on xfm or mtv needs to do themselves a favour and check out the first two albums, the self titled masterpiece and Rated R. Such songs as Mexicola, Autopilot, In The Fade, Regular John and How To Handle A Rope should be heard by everyone.
You also need to check out all the Desert Sessions records, Kyuss, Mark Lanegans solo work and the Screaming Trees, the Dwarves, the Eagles of Death Metal, and Mondo Generator.
Go get em, tiger.
