When four brief seconds of ambient concert noise are overwhelmed by crushingly loud metal guitar riffs, the mood for Queens of the Stone Age's first live album is set: no glitzy stage show, few conversational interludes and no time to catch your breath. In concert, QOTSA get right to the point, and their point is: Hard rock freakin' ROCKS. It may seem obvious, but it is hard to argue with, especially when it sounds this good.
This album, Over the Years and Through the Woods, is a CD/DVD set documenting two live shows the band played in London in the summer of 2005. Though the DVD focuses on the London shows, the real treats come from the bonus materials: live performances concurrent with the release of each of their four studio LPs. While sifting through these shows, it is hard to decide whether it is more fun to watch the band play to a group no larger than 30'including the bounciest cowboy ever caught on tape'way back in 1998, watching Dave Grohl pound through 'God Is On the Radio' during his brief stint with them or the recent clip of QOTSA jamming with ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons on a killer version of 'Burn the Witch.'
The live CD is the kind of album best recommended only to fans, but anyone who digs hard rock will thoroughly enjoy it. The first highlight is a version of 'Monster in the Parasol' from their still-reigning masterpiece, Rated R. QOTSA's live rendition of the song brings to mind what the '60s might have sounded like had psychedelic music been based upon books of the occult instead of those written by Timothy Leary.
Following 'Monster in the Parasol,' frontman Josh Homme breaks QOTSA's usual policy of 'less talk, more rock' by drawing attention to a guy in the crowd he decries as 'a total cocksmoker' for throwing things at the band during the set. Before jumping into the metal-waltz of 'Tangled Up in Plaid' he informs the man, 'Now it's not just me and you that know you're a fucking asshole'it's everybody.'
Not every song works well for them in concert, however: 'I Think I Lost My Headache' finds the band working a rather ordinary metal riff over and over, sounding almost as bored with it as the audience probably was. More conducive to the concert setting is 'You Can't Quit Me, Baby,' a Yardbirds-worthy blues jam, and 'I Wanna Make It Wit Chu,' a '70s soul-style come-on song so good it makes you want to seek out all ten albums from Desert Sessions, the Josh Homme side project the song was taken from. And 'Burn the Witch,' one of the best songs off of Lullabies to Paralyze, especially benefits from the live treatment. Losing the album version's mechanical precision, it takes on a loose, energetic groove. QOTSA are detail-oriented perfectionists in the studio, so when they let loose and saturate this song with a monster groove, it makes you glad they bothered to release this live album.
Though some live albums manage to capture the spirit of a band better than any of their studio recordings (as with Cheap Trick's At Budokan or MC5's Kick Out the Jams), most are best recommended to fans of the artist only. While this may be true of Over the Years and Through the Woods, it still showcases a band good enough that even the casually interested will find a song to viciously bang their head to.
