Queens of the Stone Age – 'Perfecth': first reviews hail the ninth album
The album is out on 30 October via Matador. Record Collector calls it a career highlight, while Uncut and Mojo both award four out of five stars.
Photo: Mike.sprandel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Single video: YouTube · Queens Of The Stone Age · youtube.com
Single: Where the Goth Girls At?
Queens of the Stone Age release their ninth studio album 'Perfecth' on Matador Records on 30 October. Josh Homme and Michael Shuman produced it, with recording at Sound City Studios. Its nine songs run just over 36 minutes. On the title, Homme says: "Nothing in this world is perfect, but everything seems to be 'perfecth'." Released in advance were 'Easy Street' featuring Nikki Lane, 'Insignificant Other' – the centrepiece according to the band, recorded on the second of only two takes – and most recently 'Where the Goth Girls At?'.
The first reviews come from British music magazines. Anthony Thornton gives it full marks in Record Collector, describing the album as "direct, honest and troubled" and placing it alongside the band's classics. In Uncut, John Lewis writes that Homme and the band "seek connection on their gleaming ninth LP"; Keith Cameron (Mojo) also awards four out of five stars. That puts 'Perfecth' on 87 points at Album of the Year.
In the video for 'Where the Goth Girls At?', directed by Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski, Homme plays the head of a deserted power plant where one goth girl sets out to "infect" the workforce; comedian Steve Agee, dancer Scarlett Kapella and singer Lou Lou Safran also appear. The song looks back on Homme's youth in Palm Desert – "Teenage love, ain't it grand?" he says.