The last time Josh Homme and Dave Grohl teamed up, they recorded Songs for the Deaf, arguably the most liberated work in Queens of the Stone Age's catalog. Homme, a present-day authority on desert rock, and Grohl, a founding father of grunge, complemented each other's unbridled self-indulgences to create a masochistic bravado that was both captivating and smothering. Seven years removed from the landmark effort, the two reunited—with help from Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones on bass—to form Them Crooked Vultures, a group so insolently pompous they almost redefine the term ""cock rock.""
Their eponymous debut exhibits an isolation so complete that it's entirely open, breaking down numerous rock conventions in its expansive roam. They show utter disregard for time signatures and stray from the melody as far as they can before reconvening in outright contempt for their own instruments. Whereas Poison, Foreigner and other '80s cock-rockers defined themselves by their sexual promiscuity, Homme and Grohl seem content to define themselves by their more purified audaciousness. And, all told, they have impressive testicular fortitude.
Vultures has the kind of roomy density Homme's been toying with for years but never fully realized. Even the radio-ready songs are a heavy load. Vultures coat every element with distortion but somehow manage to keep the product smooth enough to achieve maximal velocity. It's somewhat apparent that Vultures is a one-shot deal with the way each idea and each hook is presented with such immediacy. The group has so many ideas they're afraid they won't have enough time to get them all out, and when stretched over an entire full-length album, it becomes a bit overwhelming.
A main element of Homme and Grohl's reunion equation that will get overlooked is the absence of Nick Oliveri. After sharing the stage with Homme through Songs for the Deaf, Oliveri's less-than-amicable split showed through in QOTSA's subsequent foray into more winding melodies and meandering chords. Oliveri provided both substance and location to Homme's off-the-cuff songwriting. Songs for the Deaf's polarity was pinned to the wall by Oliveri's deliberate bass riffs, and its dueling apha males were trained to cooperate by his productive contributions. Without his input, though, the two are like hungry dogs ravaging the studio for snacks, feasting on every note with voracious glee.
Although one of the most legendary names in the history of music, John Paul Jones exists in Vultures only to tie the loose ends in what is essentially a Homme-Grohl free-for-all. The two have enough natural chemistry to pack Vultures with a surplus of thundering riffs, but the bits and pieces of brilliance struggle to find an organized presentation. Jones gives ample room for exploration and fills in the blanks amiably, but what makes a supergroup super is the impressive contributions of multiple songwriting forces. In this case, it sounds like Vultures is a two-man show, and they're having too much fun to be able to remove themselves from the situation to examine it objectively.
They have thunderous riffs, sure, but you get the sense they're sleepwalking through them. These guys write a handful of thunderous riffs before rolling out of bed in the morning. A supergroup like this one needs to be truly transformative to be a success, and Them Crooked Vultures only ever achieve that pinnacle in name. Their instrumental machismo will do a lot to counterbalance hair metal's spin on phallic perversions, but their lack of a consistent structure suggests they're just sort of playing around.
Homme and Grohl will always produce something worth listening to, and Them Crooked Vultures is no different. At some point, though, they need to stop pushing the envelope and just start lighting it on fire.
