Them Crooked Vultures

After DaveGrohl announced in a 2005 Mojointerview that his project with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and LedZeppelin’s John Paul Jones “wouldn’t suck,” most fans of hard-hitting rockwould’ve found it difficult to question such a statement. Four years later,said project finally released, it’s our responsibility to ask, “Does it suck?”

Well, ofcourse it doesn’t (it’s Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and JohnPaul-freaking-Jonescome on!).

Nextquestion: Does it rock socks and blow freaking minds?

A:Occasionally.

The problem(and, ironically, what keeps this album interesting) is that Grohl and Co.recognize that there are many gray shades of kick-you-in-the-face hard rock.Queens of the Stone Age is not Led Zeppelin. Hell, Foo Fighters aren’t evenNirvana. Sure, players can adapt their styles to mesh with a new ensemble. Theclosing circular riffing of “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I” and“Bandoliers”the one track that could fit in any of the catalogs from the threemembers’ flagship bandsprove that. But then “Scumbag Blues” just rehashes40-year-old Cream licks. And “Gunman” pulls a Man Who Sold the World metal-era Bowie chorus. OK, that one’s actually kindacool. You’d probably like it.