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"Villains" is the seventh studio album by American rock band Queens of the Stone Age, released on August 25, 2017 August 25, 2017 on the Matador label.
The heavy-duty rockers’ last album, 2013’s portentous ‘Like Clockwork’ was packed full of cameo appearances from their famous friends, Elton John and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner included, but on album number seven only one guest has been allowed through the studio doors. Mark Ronson is the sharp-suited interloper, here to offer up his funked-up pop production skills after Homme decided he wanted the dry, tight sound the Brit showcased on ‘Uptown Funk’..
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 22 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim ".
User Album Review
Worried about producer Mark Ronson parping his brass sections all over Queens’ sacred desert rock riffs? Worry not. Within the first 90 seconds of ‘Villains” opening track ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me’ – an apocalyptic rumble that builds into the kind of gargantuan, guitar-stabbing strut that’ll make whole arenas simultaneously lose their minds – it’s clear that Josh Homme and co have lost none of their ferocity. If anything, Ronson simply fine-tunes the swagger that’s been there all along.
Lead single ‘The Way You Used To Do’ is their most hip-swinging offering to date, while the hyperactive basslines and relentless pace of ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’-esque highlight ‘Head Like A Haunted House’ show Homme’s musical tutelage of Alex Turner might run both ways. Even on its stormier moments, (the ‘Telegram Sam’-nodding ‘Un-Reborn Again’; ‘Domesticated Animals” deliciously crunchy, dirty riffs), the record never loses its sass. As a whole, ‘Villains’ is the Californian filthmongers’ most danceable offering yet – and all the better for it.
Reviewed by Lisa Wright for diymag.com.
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