Real Men Love: Queens Of The Stone Age's "Era Vulgaris"

 

 

 

They're the manliest band with the word "queen" in its name. They've been making "fuck you" jams since 1997. And their 2007 album "Era Vulgaris" is their biggest "fuck you" yet. It's their least catchy, noisiest and most impenetrable album to date...while you could throw on songs from their last two albums at a party and get modest approval, playing nearly any of the songs on "Era Vulgaris" will shut down said party immediately.  And that's awesome. Here are other reasons why Real Men Love "Era Vulgaris"

EVERY SONG IS A JAM FOR DRINKING TO

Seriously. "Era Vulgaris" is like an alcoholic's mixtape. It's filled with riffs, crazy sounds, mushy lyrics and distorted as fuck drums. Listening to the album sober already sounds like how most music sounds when you're in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. You can almost smell the stale cigarette smoke in the air when listening to these songs.

So if you're gonna grab a bunch of rowdy buddies for a night of drinking and cards, drinking in your backyard, drinking and driving (don't drink and drive) or drinking and naked wrestling (do drink and naked wrestle), you've got your soundtrack. The album even follows the arc of a night out drinking...it starts out wild and pulsing and then slows down (that's for when you're in your depressed zone), then picks up again and ends in a blaze until you (and the music) passes out.

IT'S LIKE NINE INCH NAILS, BUT WITHOUT ALL THE PUSSY WHINING

Who didn't love Nine Inch Nails when they first came out? Well, my mom didn't. But, like, everyone else pretty much did. Trent Reznor is one talented motherfucker.  He's also a huge nerd and he's constantly whining about shit. At one time, he was attempting to get into a war of the words with Courtney Love. Dude, save those shenanigans for the guy from the New Radicals (google it, you'll laugh when you remember).

Now take those Goth Industrial jams Nine Inch Nails did and staple a nutsack to them and you get "Era Vulgaris." You won't hear frontman Josh Homme dissing Courtney Love because his music is too busy bulldozing her disgusting ass.

But seriously, all the noise and distortion and computerized madness that made Nine Inch Nails great is in full force here...but you don't feel like a disenfranchised teenager when you listen to "Era Vulgaris." You feel like beating up disenfranchised teenagers...not because you're a bully, but because the music told you so.

THE LYRICS YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ARE BADASS

When you CAN hear lyrics over the absolute chaos that is this album, they kick ass. Some samplings include: "Battery Acid in my veins / Unidentified remains," Run, you'll never escape / You see, you'll go nowhere," "Aint born to lose baby, I’m born to win / I’m so goddamn slick baby, it’s a Sin," "Do me first. Do your worst." These guys aren't fucking around. They're both bragging like SOB's and making threatening come ons to all the ladies who have done them wrong. The lyrics are all seriously disturbed in the same way that most real men are. These are the songs Bukowski would've written. Mhmmm.

BULBY THE CARTOON LIGHT BULB

The album's mascot (mascots, really) is Bulby, the cartoon light bulb who is featured twice on the album's cover (once with a pirate hat, once with a broken head, smoking). It's pure comedy that an album this dense has its own cartoon character...the same way that a scary Marine having a tattoo of Mickey Mouse on his left bicep is pure comedy.

 

 

THEIR ACCOMPANYING SMALL TOWN TOUR

The tour that has followed the release of the album has been dubbed the "Duluth Tour" by the band because they're gonna be touring small towns that don't normally get big acts like the Queens Of The Stone Age. This is genius, because this album, more than any of their others, is the soundtrack of small town bad asses everywhere. Anything that sounds midway between Led Zep and power tools is gonna have 30-soemthing construction workers in Indiana shitting themselves...this I know. 

Here's "Battery Acid" off the album: