Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 23/04/06
Label: Downtown

Improbably, the comedy project with the silly name and the big fella from Queens Of The Stone Age who can't play drums on the drums, is back for a second album. Though it's perhaps not all that surprising, given the unexpected pleasure their 2003 debut, "Peace, Love And Death Metal" proved to be.

For the uninitiated, its worth pointing out that Death Metal plays no part in the garage band tub-thumping and chord grinding performed by Josh Homme and Jesse "The Devil" Hughes. Rather EODM pay homage to rock'n'roll and the bluesy, boozy sound of The Stones circa "Exile On Main Street" via a slightly camp dash of psychobilly. For the latter, fans of sorely missed former Queens nut job Nick Oliveri, and his most inspired moments - like the mayhem of "Quick And To the Pointless" - should look to the previous album's masterstroke, "Speaking In Tongues". By EODM standards, "Death By Sexy" is restrained, disciplined even.

But this line-up certainly brings some of Oliveri's unpredictable energy back into Homme's constantly circling whirl of creativity. After all, this joke band is in the capable hands of one-time rock journalist and daughter-stealing man of the night, Hughes. A master of contradiction, his songs are both contrived and spontaneous, utterly daft and yet completely respectful of tradition. "I Gotta Feeling (Just Nineteen)" and "Cherry Cola" both offer paeans to young flesh with whiskey bottle slurs as standard. "Don't Speak (I Came To Make A BANG!)" is a perfect example of what EODM do best, a song which appears to have been written with the sole intention of delivering a killer stop-start middle section.

"Chase the Devil" invokes rock's dark mythology and gives Hughes a chance to reprise his unique talent for speaking in rock'n'roll tongues. It's one of just a couple of occasions - the other being the cheeky spirituality of "Bag O' Miracles" - when this album is as adventurously daft as its predecessor. So, a grown-up EODM album, hardly serious, but certainly more complete than the half-cooked sketches that used to pass for their songs. You can only hope that some of this spirit finds its way back into the increasingly po-faced business of Queens Of The Stone Age.

    by James Poletti