The Tag-Team series would normally feature two or more reviews posted as once but this CD stands out so much that we had to break the Tag-Team into two installments. For the first installment Travis Becker gave us his take on this latest offering from the lords of desert rock.  And as promised, Zane now checks in with his review of the new CD!

Zane Ewton's review - he gave it a rating of 

2005 is measuring up to be a year full of highly anticipated records from some of rock’s best bands.  Maybe none anticipated more than Lullabies to Paralyze from Queens of the Stone Age.  Songs for the Deaf came out of nowhere to most folks and was a welcomed breathe of fresh air.  Lullabies to Paralyze is the sound of the Queens drawing a line in the sand separating the mice from the men.  It is also deeper, darker and a considerably more interesting record.
 
While Songs for the Deaf felt like a frontal assault, Lullabies to Paralyze feels like someone has crept in the dark to slide in a knife while you sleep.  The record is long on mood; full of dark shapes and shadowy figures.  It is precisely the album that should be sitting next to 50 Cent on your Wal-Mart shelf space.
 
Josh Homme seemingly breaks all the rules by not letting this band become settled or relax into any type of comfort zone.  He has been able to bring people in and out who all have the same goals in music.  But by working without a net, and not falling into the usual traps of rock bands done good, the potential for success or disaster with any new release only heightens the experience.  Fortunately, Homme continues to deliver and grow as a musician and songwriter.
 
Even with all of the mood and the gloom, Homme has written consistently good songs for this album.  You can argue that nothing stands out immediately, but when everything is so good your argument has no basis.  Each song from “This Lullaby” to “Long Slow Goodbye” stands well on its own but come together to create a more powerful entity.  
 
While music appears to get safer with each passing year, the Queens of the Stone Age continue to get weirder.  One of the few bands you can hear on the radio that is exciting and essential.
 

Travis Becker's review - he gave it a rating of 

Queens of the Stone Age is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, enveloped in a cloud of smoke.  More a loose collective of like-minded, chemically-enthusiastic musicians than an actual band, it’s difficult to formulate too many expectations when they release a new album.  2002’s, “Songs for the Deaf”, was a surprisingly commercial sounding album that yielded a couple of hits, but still maintained the general quirkiness by which QOTSA had already come to be known.  This year’s follow up, “Lullabies to Paralyze”, arrives as both a realization of potential and a conscious about face from the spot light in which the band finds itself in 2005.  Except for the already charting, “Little Sister”, there aren’t any obvious hit singles here, just a lot of Josh Homme’s signature smooth guitar chirp and saw and a lot of what has made QOTSA one of the most innovative rock bands to come along in ages, just plain weirdness.  This is a dense, complicated and challenging album.  Not everything comes right out to center stage on the first listen.  A lot of the beauty and power of this record hides behind the curtain and in the dimly lit corners, just waiting for someone to notice them. 

The line-up this go around has changed significantly again. Josh Homme remains the constant, it’s his baby after all.  The cast of crazy uncles and cousins, however, is almost entirely different.  Dave Grohl is long gone as is long time Homme collaborator, Nick Oliveri, seen by many as the Yin to Homme’s Yang.  The absence of Oliveri is particularly noticeable, and in a way amounts to a case of addition by subtraction.  This is not to take anything away from Oliveri’s contribution to previous Queens’s records, but the atmosphere and the degree of seriousness conveyed in this album wouldn’t have come through with Oliveri.  His manic bursts of metallic ecstasy will be missed, along with his off kilter sense of fun, but this is a much more focused record with one engineer at the switch and it’s better for that. 

Joining Homme this time out is guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen of Perfect Circle fame, and drummer Joey Castillo who has played with literally everyone.  Of course, Mark Lanegan is still in tow, albeit in a reduced role for this album, at least in terms of vocal performances.  He still gets several writing credits.  It’s appropriate, though, that  musicians come and go so frequently from QOTSA, given that so much of the material that ends up on their albums is born in another of Homme’s projects, the Desert Sessions, which is an actual collective of musicians rather than a band.  The sheer volume of creative input that goes into a QOTSA release makes for an engaging listen.

“Lullabies” begins with the haunting baritone of Mark Lanegan on “This Lullaby”, setting the tone for what is to be something of a subdued and moody record at times and a punchy metallic space trip at others.  The mood shifts drastically for “Medication” which sounds the most like something off of “Songs for the Deaf” out of anything on the record.  In fact, the entire first side (if this were vinyl and we had sides, in this case the first half of the album) registers much closer to the kind of radio friendly rock that QOTSA favored on their last album.  The songs here are better and fit together much more effortlessly, though.  No need for tacked on radio banter to tie things together on this release.  “Tangled Up in Plaid” and “Burn the Witch” are both leaps forward in songwriting and feature detailed arrangements. 

“Burn the Witch” in particular stands out for its blues trot featuring Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top on guitar.  The warm familiarity and big hook of “Little Sister” cap off the first half in a nice coda before things really get interesting.  The slinky sounds of “I Never Came” prefaces the centerpiece of “Lullabies to Paralyze”, “Someone’s in the Wolf.”  A layered, atmospheric, echoey, truly creepy triumph in rock songwriting, it has horns, flutes, and legendary producer and Masters of Reality leader, Chris Goss, as the Wolf.  If you have the limited edition with bonus DVD, check out the video for this song, wow.  The lusty, breathlessness of “Skin on Skin” keeps things going and the record ends on a sleazy, badly tripping binge with “’You’ve Got a Killer Scene There, Man” where Homme intones, “I just cursed the sun so I can howl at the moon.”  It almost recalls a dirty Jesus and Mary Chain drips with “salty” and “sultry” vocals from everyone from Shirley Manson to Brody Dalle to Chris Goss again.  This record is all about mood and the band nails it at every opportunity.  Even the orchestral bonus track feels perfectly suited to “Lullabies” and lets you down easy. 

It’s nowhere near Kyuss, it’s more fully realized than either the self-titled release or “Rated R” and it’s just better music than anything on “Songs for the Deaf.”  This album may take a couple of listens to really drill into your head.  Maybe you want to break out the headphones and just sort of soak it all up, let it leak into your brain.

Take the time, though, it’s worth it.  Homme’s fearless commitment to doing whatever the hell he feels like is evident throughout, but it works because he’s either a genius or has created a musical niche for himself and his compatriots that is so far outside of the mainstream that no other band can even get a boat in the water.  In either case, it’s going to be hard for the rock world at large not to see this production, it’s the must see event of the year so far.  Hopefully they’ll taking time to notice everything hiding in the dark and lurking behind the curtain in front of the freak show sitting center stage.

Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze
Label: Interscope Records
 

Tracks: This Lullaby Medication Everybody Knows That You Are Insane Tangled Up In Plaid Burn The Witch In My Head Little Sister I Never Came Someone's In The Wolf Blood Is Love, The Skin On Skin Broken Box "You Got A Killer Scene There, Man..." Long Slow Goodbye.

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