Queens of the Stone Age
Villains

LA RECENSIONE

Some time ago, I had to undergo a prostate exam with extreme reluctance.

Obviously, not due to poor urethral retention or because my member each morning is less robust than a granite menhir.

Simply the delightful diagnostic routine imposed by the advancing age limits, one of those pleasant side effects of old age.

Like a nice new pair of glasses to better see the definitions of crossword puzzles without squinting until you become one with the Weekly Enigmist, or desiring the bathtub with a door advertised by Giorgiomastrota, insulting the young people zooming by on the sidewalk just for the thrill of it, watching the metro blue line construction site while shaking your head (“they’ll never make it”).

Things like that.

But let's not digress, and to you, young pimply, nerdy user who is basking in your snickers of pity, I say you’ve got nothing to laugh about.

When it's your turn, know that, from the height of a little cloud wrapped in a cloak of light and now freed from all earthly disturbance, I will watch you with hearty laughter.

Well, I can't reveal the name of the urologist kindly recommended by a colleague I no longer speak to; just know that his surname of two syllables and four letters is inversely proportional to the size of his grasping extremity.

A hand whose palmar surface is comparable to that of Arizona and with a middle finger that could be unsheathed like a bold musketeer with his blade.

I leave to the most vivid imaginations the dismay in the face of the awareness of an intrusion of such proportion.

Of those terrible moments, I remember the muttered curses directed at Mother Nature, who amused herself by designing male anatomy by placing the precious gland right at the bottom of the asshole, and little else.

The rest I've erased, except for the indelible psychic scar: a mix of a sense of violation, disgust, grave disappointment leading to anger.

You may wonder what the hell all this has to do in a review of QOTSA.

Here we go, a little more than a month after the release of this work that entered my player no more than twice, the same awareness arises.

The ones that come after a huge screwing: unpleasant sense of violation, disgust, grave disappointment leading to anger.

I could tell you that Villains is a pop album, even well-packaged, relegating the analysis to my desire to vent with liberating profanity.

And I know that on these pages I also talked about unaltered compositional class, well… it was bullshit, the pathetic attempts at self-convincing by an old fool who doesn’t want to resign himself to the idea that one of his favorite bands has produced yet another well-packaged crap.

Have some understanding, it's not easy to realize that the girl you love is actually a slut.

But here on deb, we don't love simplifications, so I will strive in an analysis of what is musically contained herein: a pop-rock patchwork produced by a Ronson of whom we already know everything.

In a sea of little songs that knowingly wink at wave, rockabilly, blues rock atmospheres, and whatever else might help capture as wide an audience as possible, the boring boogie of “The Way You Used to Do” and the exhausting “Un-Reborn Again,” a piece already horrendous and dragged out as well, stand out for their ugliness.

And the effectively twisted and articulated embroideries of “The Evil Has Landed” or the rarefied and captivating atmospheres in “Villains Of Circumstance,” where you can still perceive that aforementioned compositional class, aren't enough to reach adequacy.

Alright Josh, let's forever forget the psychedelic distortions and hallucinogenic dustiness of the past.

If your ambition is to parade at the MTV Awards flicking on stage with Lady Gaga, go ahead, your dick has gone limp and that’s fine… time passes for everyone.

However, it just so happens that there are ways to age, and my rod is still well upright and turgid.

So fuck you, and go to Dr. Maga for a urological visit; you might benefit from it.