Queens Of The Stone Age mellow out on woozy "Easy Street"
Desert royalty Queens Of The Stone Age single-handedly broke the dangerous, chemically enhanced subgenre of psychedelic hard rock into the mainstream with a mythic 2000s run that fully embodied a maniac sense of chaotic unpredictability defined by a rotating cast of players sourced from beneath the bedrock of the alternative underground. At the center of this orbit has always been the Queen himself, Joshua Homme, and as the band gained in popularity his gravitational pull increased to an inescapable magnitude and the inevitable implosion was writ large across the public consciousness.
Although he may have stumbled, Homme did not completely succumb to the flames of auto-immolation. Queens Of The Stone Age had always been a band built around reinvention; such is the nature of the orchestrator. Homme leveraged personal struggles and near-death experiences to craft 2013’s critically lauded introspective stunner …Like Clockwork, an album that so thoroughly upended expectations that the band was instantly realigned away from their hedonistic generator-party origins into a highbrow stratosphere few rock ‘n’ rollers can ever hope to achieve. The follow-ups took a dubious turn with the Mark Ronson-produced Villains and the surprisingly bland In Times New Roman. But with each misstep it was becoming increasingly clear that Homme was getting closer to regaining his footing after a long period on the slippery slopes.
2025’s Catacombs project was the marble monument that seemed to finally put to rest Homme’s past decade, a gorgeously composed gothic expression that draped a funerary shroud over past accomplishments with reverent finality. Emerging from the tomb, Homme has once again signaled a new path with this most recent resurrection. An eyebrow-raising collaboration with Canadian pop-country diva Shania Twain released just last week seemed, at first blush, a curio and one-off exercise in stretching into uncharted artistic boundaries, almost immediately juxtaposed with a monumentally evil turn on the latest Mastodon single released just days later that feels solidly in Homme’s wheelhouse. And now Queens Of The Stone Age have returned with their own single that, like the body of work constituting …Like Clockwork and Villains before it, represents a brand new facet in the glittering multiplicity of Homme’s artistic horde.
Has Joshua Homme gone country? Perhaps not completely, but “Easy Street” proves the Shania Twain collaboration was something more than just a brief dalliance. Muted acoustic guitar strums breezily over enthusiastic handclaps that populate the background like the rhythmic chatter of party guests through French doors left slightly ajar, the casual sound of distant camaraderie washing like surf against a melancholy figure solitary on the balcony retreating from the revelry to exhale emotions on clouds of hand-rolled tobacco and Mary Jane. Homme’s signature guitar tones still come through as the track meanders its way towards a woozy finale, like ice clinking against a glass upturned for that final sip of tequila before switching off the lights and heading back inside where the incandescent glow of home keeps the encroaching spirits that inhabit the gloaming at bay.
Indie country darling Nikki Lane’s contributions to the track lend a mellow twang while flirting from behind false lashes and rhinestone bedazzlery with the genre’s outlaw history as Homme looks back on the troublemaking and strife of his own days past. It’s a pairing that works, exhibiting a more natural fluidity that suits Homme significantly better than anything on Villains ever did and opens a pathway expanding deeper into the broad spectrum of the western desert’s expansive soundscape. In a way “Easy Street” is meditative, a conscious uncoupling from the daily circus in an effort to regain a sense of self lost amidst the turbulence and upheaval of a life lived too long at the epicenter of self-destruction.
This is still a Queens Of The Stone Age track, and Homme’s inventive lyricism is very much at play, weaving double entendres and playful turns of phrase amidst darkly self-deprecating humor that finds him reflective while coming to terms with a new state of being. “I’m not like that anymore, been dead a long time” lands with the recognition of past misbehaviors but refuses to wallow in the mire, instead choosing to strive towards a healthier existence that recognizes the critical survival need for growth, even if some around you, and even parts of yourself, need to be left behind in the maze. When the time is right the important ones will come around to find a better person living content in a little bungalow on Easy Street.
But this is not a retreat. Homme never waves the white flag, instead he perches himself up on his porch watching the world carry on in its endless machinations, fully content in the enjoyment of a sunset earned through hard knocks and an existence scaled down to the bare necessities for a life savored in the comedown.
Unfortunately, the visual interpretation of this newfound peace is less convincing. Filled with famous friends, “Easy Street” is a carnival of gleefully cartoonish misbehavior that places Homme, appropriately, at the front of the pack. Bruised and bloodied, Homme leads a kaleidoscope of weirdos through the streets, terrorizing the quiet blandness of Los Angeles’s urban-suburbia through sheer volume of presence alone. The set-up tracks visually with 2019’s Desert Sessions, cramming an overwhelming amount of hyper-concentrated theatricality and performative stereotypes into an overdose of pop-culture cliches that explodes with the exaggerated force of a Looney Tunes booby trap.
Descending upon an unassuming mid-century ranch, the capital-C Characters proceed to transform the quiet space into a wildly unhinged midday house party that feels uncomfortably forced and actually pretty tame considering the implied objective of the visual narrative, existing mostly as overly curated Herald Square mannequins to be gawked at by out-of-town passerbys. The only people that seem like they’re having fun are Homme himself and a polyester Golden Girl portrayed by Gaylynn Baker. Even featured artist Nikki Lane feels just kind of “there.”
“Drinking won’t help” croons Homme as he takes swigs from a camera-ready anonymously labeled bottle of añejo, slipping further into inebriated delirium as the disorienting camerawork becomes increasingly claustrophobic. Digital effects and filters get layered on top of the saturated high-resolution footage and distract rather than enhance, like an algorithm-produced Netflix series that feels oddly cheap despite the obviously enormous budget. Ultimately the video ends up getting in the way and a song about escaping performance gets trapped inside performance. A more authentic, DIY approach and less reliance on visual gags would have better served the subject matter and helped the video stick the landing.
“Easy Street” is streaming now via Matador. Follow Queens Of The Stone Age on Instagram.
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