Times New Roman may be a blasé choice for font – but this eighth album of theirs is nothing of the sort. Grotty dark embellishments are with us as the group head back to their good ol’ Era Vulgaris days.
It’s not been a particularly glamorous state of affairs for band leader Josh Homme in recent months. After a spew of horrendous events – including cutting his own forehead on stage, kicking a photographer in the face, restraining orders on his kids, domestic abuse towards his ex-wife – Homme has very much been painted as the very antagonist portrayed on their seventh. And rightly so. The band followed, skulking off deeming it as an “hiatus”, all the while Josh was trying to get his working life in order.
Of course, the road to Times New Roman has been a precarious one. The announcement of their next project has been preceded by a careful campaign of a character, of course, almost at his rehabilitation stage as a band leader to become himself again; getting back to do what he does best. Funnily enough, that’s not kicking women in the face both professionally and domestically. No, instead it was an embarking of self-release, a walk down the path to redemption; as he tries to leave those dark days behind him.
What he leaves in its murky trail is the beginning of In Times New Roman… A dark dredge of raw rock-swagger befitting to a desert shootout, it blazes back to the chassis of QOTSA’s grounded sound of Era Vulgaris. An album that was championed during its release in 2007 that wasn’t littered with controversy, it undoubtedly marked a major u-turn for the band commercially. Perhaps this is Josh’s pound of flesh, the Turning On The Screw as he begins a new chapter for some of the “baddest motherfuckers” around in music (Grohl’s words, not mine). A new chapter preferably not too sanctimonious like the last two he’s rode on.
Without a doubt though, this new album is certainly marked with a let bygones be bygones affair. It’s dark, sure – Homme has no trouble in dissecting the brutal dark days that have been occurred. But it’s also a real submerging for Josh to purge himself of the damage he’s done. Far-out stinger Emotional Sickness with its swaying guitar fuzz sums it up: “People come up and go on the breeze, For a whole life? Possibly / I don’t really know, oh / A flick of the switch, so smooth and clean. How we grow is so painful, believe me / Then my fever broke.” Less so an apology, more an observation. The best you’re going to get from a fortified rockstar.
The album doesn’t let up its dark depravities – not even a sombre piano ballad thrown in the mix to simmer the sweat – as we’re thrown in with the most implosive of riffs on the album, Hives-esque of Paper Machete. Negative Space is more swampy, but equally righteous in its efforts – there’s certainly no bloated fillers here. Made To Parade guitar alarm calls and high-pitched vocals bring a more punctual version of Monsters in the Parasol off their Rated-R record at the start of the noughties. While Carnavoyeur brings out the woozy dream-state of …Like Clockwork from 2013 – an album inundated with high cult-classics. That boomy fuzz pedal returns once again to our ears. An equally harrowing piece to the unrelenting lasso of life as Josh comes to terms with how little he can really do: “Only sin is waiting too long / And there’s nothing I can do, I smile I smile…” Due to the Josh’s history, it’s almost impossible to begin dissecting the lyrics of his, but it’s not easy to forget how heavy the music itself is. A large lust for variety has come for QOTSA fans as swampy sticklers become groovy funk fiddlings that will be forever dowsed in those riffages that can blast you back into any space-time continuum you see fit. I can imagine Sicily become a favourite among many, it’s swathing tempo and Middle Eastern motifs, is enough for any cobra to be charmed out of its basket. It seems that QOTSA are content on making 10-track albums now, and this one ends with a blistering splurge of possibly every idea jotted down on the drawing board into a 9-minute instrumental magnitude: this is Straight Jacket Fitting.
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