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Queens of the Stone Age - Over the Years and Through the Woods
- Queens of the Stone Age front man Josh Homme is a big man. This is indisputable: At six-foot-five, sporting a shock of flame-red hair and with a muscular build, he looks like a cross between post-rehab Trent Reznor and comedian Carrot Top. Homme’s dynamic presence and powerful appearance makes him one of modern rock’s most formidable personalities onstage or off. The Queens’ sole live album, “Over the Years and Through the Woods,” confirms this, testifying not only to Homme and his band’s stage presence but also his strength as a songwriter.
“Years” is packaged as a combo CD/DVD recording of a Queens live performance at London’s Brixton Academy in 2005 in the wake of the release of their fourth album, “Lullabies to Paralyze.” The CD contains a condensed version of the DVD’s setlist, cutting seven songs for space reasons. However, the loss of these songs is not necessarily a detriment to the album version as a whole because it creates a leaner, meaner setlist while also eliminating much of the less-than-stellar onstage banter and dead spaces preserved on the DVD. The absence of the excellent live versions of “The Fun Machine Took a S--- and Died” and “I Never Came” is unfortunate, but the exclusion of less-than-stellar performances of “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret,” “Song for the Deaf” and the overrated “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” certainly do not harm the album’s quality.
The fourteen tracks included on “Years” are a true testament to the Queens’ powerful live performance, loading every tune with the hard-hitting rock and virtuoso metal elements for which the band has become justifiably famous. Whether it is the straight-forward punch of album-opener “Go with the Flow” and the creepy “Little Sister” or the prolonged jams forming the crux of elongated takes of “You Can’t Quit Me Baby” and “Long Slow Goodbye,” the Queens are in top form.
The only real detriment to the tunes on “Years” is an overabundance of songs from the band’s earlier days, easily the Queens’ most overexposed era of material. Tracks from “Lullabies,” the band’s best album, are disappointingly few and far-between, an odd choice given “Years” was recorded only months after “Lullabies” debuted. However, this oversight is more than corrected by the Queens’ performance on every song, filled with power and breathing life into each tune distinct from the studio version. This is the hallmark of not only a magnificent live album, but also a peerless band, with Homme’s prowess as a singer, songwriter, musician and, as one publication has put it, “man-mountain” of a front man forming the dynamic center of the Queens’ live presence.
Reviewer: Adam Rowan
new
Reviewer's Rating: 9.5
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 2
Added: 15-Jun-2009
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