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Rating:
And so we lost them too.
Indeed, having reached the fifth album, QOTSA confirm all the perplexities that had been raised with the previous "Lullabies...". Not even the future looks bright: the overall monotony of the work leaves no room for optimistic forecasts. Josh Homme, convinced he has invented a style, the so-called robotic rock, continues to repeat the same old riffs incessantly, without any break. But having your own compositional signature and your own guitar playing method is not enough to produce good records. Especially if all five are the same.
Try, for example, listening to "Battery Acid": don't you immediately feel like skipping to the next track, knowing full well what the intro will be like? Occasionally, Homme saves himself at the last minute, like with "Made it wit chu", the song that follows "Battery Acid". The problem is that we've already heard it in a 'Desert Session'. The fact that our guy ends up with something worthwhile only when replaying a song already recorded during the sessions at Rancho De La Luna says a lot about his current songwriting vein. The only other track that seems interesting to me is "Suture Up Your Future", which, paradoxically, is the piece that most deviates from the usual QOTSA sound, being a nocturnal ballad à la Morphine.
One of the terrible things is that, on first listen, after a few minutes of boredom, I started listening to the songs with the immense Mark Lanegan on vocals, namely "Into The Hollow" and "River In The Road" hoping to find solace. Nothing, even those I had already heard. I believe one of the problems is the constant lineup changes. By now this is the Josh Homme Band: without strong personalities to counter the leader, like Nick Oliveri once did, or John Garcia in Kyuss, everyone just executes the little task proposed by the boss. So much so that guests like Julian Casablancas and Trent Reznor, the first in "Sick, Sick, Sick", the second in the bonus track of the U.K. version of "Era Vulgaris," just settle for doing some backup vocals, for which the singer of Negramaro would have sufficed.
So dear DeBaserists, for someone who already felt orphaned by the breakup of the killer Kyuss, what is there left to do? Where to find the sacred fire of rock'n'roll? Here it seems quite extinguished to me.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Turnin' on the Screw (05:20)
You got a question? Please don't ask it
It puts the lotion in the basket
You say bigger's better but bigger's bigger
White boy dressed up like a
Figure drawn inside a toilet on the wall
The world is round,
My square don't fit at all
They say those who can't just instruct others & act like victims or jilted lovers
You can't lose it if you never had it
Disappear man. Do some magic
You want a reason? How's about because
You ain't a has been if you never was
I sound like this
Scared to say what is your passion
So slag it all
Bitter's in fashion
Fear of failure's all you've started
The jury's in, VERDICT:
Retarded,
I'm so tired, I'm wired too
I'm a mess I guess I'm turning on the screw
02 Sick, Sick, Sick (03:35)
Young, dumb, don't see a problem
Bloodshot, stare like a hoodlum
Simple as this; I'm in love with the risk
I know what I've done,
But tell me what did I miss?
So please don't save something
Waste not, save nothing
Lose the halo, don't need to resist
I lick on my lips, and I grip on your hips.
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
First thing we succumb to
Shall, erase, and undo
Days are unreleased, if there's no police
Race to slip into whatever fits you
Make something, make someone
Beg on a knee, baby baby please
Pout your bottom lip
While cracking the whip
You know what we want,
It's candy to cum to
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
A total eclipse in the teeth of the risk
The tongue is a twist, perpetual bliss
Forever midnight
Forever midnight
Forever midnight
Forever...
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick, sick, sick
Don't resist
Sick sick, sick (I'm gonna take)
Don't resist (I don't wanna choose)
Sick, sick, sick (I'm gonna take)
Don't resist (I don't wanna change)
03 I'm Designer (04:04)
My generation’s for sale
Beats a steady job.
How much have you got ?
My generation don’t trust no one
It's hard to blame
Not even ourselves
The thing that’s real for us is: Fortune and Fame
All the rest seems like work.
Its just like Diamonds
In shit
I’m high class I’m a Whore
Actually both
Basically I'm a Pro
We’ve all got our own style
Of Baggage
Why hump it yourself?
You’ve made me an offer that I can refuse
Cos either way I get screwed
COUNTER PROPOSAL:
I go home & Jerk Off
It’s truly a lie. I counterfeit myself
It’s truly a lie. I counterfeit myself
You don’t own, you don’t own, you don’t own
You don’t own, you don't own what none can buy
You don’t own, you don't own
NEITHER DO I
High and mighty you say selling out is a shame. Is that the name of your book?
Push a silver spoon in your ass. No more holding us down
dog. down mutt. Nice mutt
You’re insulted You can’t be bought or sold.
TRANSLATION: offer too low
You don’t know what you’re worth.
It isn’t much
My piano is for sale.
How many times must I sell myself
before my pieces are gone ?
I’m one of a kind !!!
I’m designer!
Never again will I repeat myself
Enough is never enough
Never again will I repeat myself
It used to be the plan was: SCREWING THE MAN
Now its HAVE SEX WITH A MAN (after he buys you dot-com for sale at a low, low price)
It’s truly a lie, I counterfeit myself
It's truly a lie, I counterfeit myself
You don’t own , you don’t own, you don’t own me
You don’t own what none can buy
You don’t own, you don't own what none can buy
NEITHER DO I
04 Into the Hollow (03:42)
Au revoir, Adieu, Goodnight
I’m too wrong, to get right
But I cant wait forever
I’ve always been alone
A fool believes he’s clever
Don’t you wanna go into the Hollow ?
I won’t go alone
Aren’t you gonna follow ?
I live behind my eyes
Be sure to keep the surprise
I break what I have borrowed
That’s why I always go
alone into tomorrow
Don’t you wanna go into the Hollow ?
I won’t go alone
Aren’t you gonna follow ?
Into the Hollow
06 Battery Acid (04:06)
Make you into dark
Straight into your heart
Sorry all you are
I don't really care
I know you are
Robots, robots
Brainwashed babies, blood from a leech
Spoken rabies
Spastic, plastic, battery acid
Yank on the leash
Dragging you backwards
Oh my, closed eyes never see it coming
There's no thing you can say
You can't wish me away
Every masochist gets a turn
Sadistic twist, you'll never learn
Battery acid
Battery acid
Battery acid in my veins
Unidentified remains
Yes button broke to automatic
Irrational dosage of furious static
Erasing what you are
You were
''(Jealous)'' To feel the way you do
''(Dementia)'' The lie you call the truth
''(Beautiful)'' Nothing except yourself, and nobody else
I got nobody else
There's no thing you can say
You can't wish me away
Every masochist gets a turn
Sadistic twist, you'll never learn
Battery acid
Battery acid
07 Make It Wit Chu (04:50)
You wanna know if I know why?
I can't say that I do
Don't understand the evil eye
Or how one becomes two
I just can't recall what started it all
Or how to begin the end
I ain't here to break it
Just see how far it will bend
Again and again, again and again
I wanna make it
I wanna make it wit chu
Anytime, anywhere
I wanna make it
(Again and again)
I wanna make it wit chu
Sometimes the same is different
But mostly it's the same
These mysteries of life,
That just ain't my thing
If I told you that I knew
About the sun and the moon I'd be untrue
The only thing I know for sure
Is what I won't do
Anytime, anywhere
I wanna make it
(Again and again)
I wanna make it wit chu
Anytime, anywhere
I wanna make it
(Again and again)
I wanna make it wit chu
I wanna make it
(Anytime, anywhere)
I wanna make it wit chu
I wanna make it,
I wanna make it wit chu
Again and again, and again, and again, and again
08 3's & 7's (03:34)
Lie, lie to my face
Tell me it ain't nothing
That's what I wanna hear
Take the lie to the grave
That's what an old friend told me
Look what it did for him
The truth hurts so bad
Wouldn't you say?
So why tell it?
If ignorance is bliss
Then I'm in heaven now
Run, you'll never escape
You see you'd go nowhere
Soon you will appear
Broke, laid to waste
Turn into sweet nothings
Kiss you goodbye
The truth hurts so bad
Wouldn't you say?
So why tell it?
If ignorance is bliss
Then I'm in heaven now
I keep going over and over again
To never ending places I've never been
No one's catching on, calling my bluff
The devil made me only we never met
What you do, say it with a smile boy
Making us all forget
What you do, say it with a smile boy
Making us all forget
Making us all forget
Making us all forget
09 Suture Up Your Future (04:37)
I'm gonna suture up my future
I ain't jaded, I just hate it
See, I been down too long
It's kinda hard to explain
Burned and buried, all I carried
All my evil through a needle
As if pulled through the eye
What was and what will
They're all gone
Don't sweat it
Thread it to forget it
To feel like you're already gone
To the rest of
The rest of the life that you've got
Take a picture
Bury it all away, bury it all away
Try to fake it, I just can't take it
I don't care if it hurts
Just so long as it's real
I won't waste it, I turn to face it
I'd sharpen the knife
Then used it to bone, made it dull
Tried explaining unexplained
Got caught in the plan
All this talking at once
I've been giving my love away
To the things that tear it apart
I'm gonna suture up my future
Thread it to forget it
To feel like you're already gone
To the rest of
The rest of the life that you've got
Tie the loose ends
Bury it all away
It's like there's
It's like there's
10 River in the Road (03:20)
Fast approaching Monsters marching in a row
Grab what slips your mind
And what your memory won’t hold
Run darling run
I'll stall them if I can
You'll escape and I'll be left rotting on the vine
Run darling run
I'll stall them if I can
You'll escape and I'll be left rotting on the vine
Avert the childrens eyes
Forget left untold
Don't look back to see
The blood River in the Road
Seek revenge with my Blood
River in the Road
11 Run, Pig, Run (04:40)
When I was young we used to play the game of hide and seek
Someone go hide, I count to ten
You probably never played, instead you talk a game of sheep
A skill you almost do perfect
Run, pig, run
Here I come
Ooh, ah, ooh, ah
Ooh, ah
I am no saint and make no claims to being in the right
It's just for now, I am wrong-less
You probably wondering with what to do, this has with you
I wanna play the game you missed
Run, pig, run
Here I come
There is no safe place
There is no safe place
There is no safe place to hide
Ooh, ah, ooh, ah
Wooh, ah
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Other reviews
By Vito Alberto
"Turnin’ On The Screw" is a perfect example of Josh's sought synthesis between vocal harmonies and Robot Rock sound.
Era Vulgaris currently reveals highs and lows, but these latter are largely negligible if you have particularly loved Lullabies To Paralyze.
By ServoDiMiyamoto
"Homme confirms himself as the Midas King of rock, always extremely inspired and in form."
"A good intro that synthesizes the sounds of Era Vulgaris."
