I remember an interview with Josh Homme around the time of the Lullabies to Paralyze release in which he talked about inserting a few intentionally bad songs on his albums to make the good ones sound even better. With Era Vulgaris, I have to wonder if the band was experimenting with dropping a few good songs between a bunch of mediocre ones—for what purpose—I don’t know, but nothing else can explain how disappointing this record is. Era Vulgaris isn’t so much a bad album, but certainly the first regressive step in QOTSA’s career.

The album starts off with the unexciting clunker “Turnin’ On The Screw,” their first song to ever make me consider the term, “standard QOTSA production.” Homme’s trademark guitar sound churns over an unremarkable riff with mixed percussion and the band’s oft-heard background harmonies. It contains all the familiar elements but fails to push them forward in a new way. The same problem can be said of “River in the Road,” a song I must have listened to over a dozen times in the past week but can’t begin to recall how it goes now—all the more depressing because it contains Mark Lanegan’s cameo.

The first single, “Sick, Sick, Sick” is one of the few truly rocking numbers. It’s loud, ugly, and heavy as hell—modern rock and roll at its absolute finest. The band doesn’t regain the same sense of urgency until several songs later when “3’s and 7’s” kicks in with squealing guitars and tempo changes. Until then the band just coasts along with fun, if not filler tunes like “I’m Designer,” “Misfit Love,” and the Desert Sessions cover “Make it Wit Chu.” They aren’t particularly bad songs, but they lack the feeling of importance and originality the album desperately calls for. “Suture Up Your Future” marks a new sound for QOTSA with some of Homme’s most delicate vocals ever recorded, but it unfortunately adds to the mostly passive sound of the record.

I think Era Vulgaris attempts to be a leaner, tighter album, but it comes across as smaller and less mature. A few tracks here and there push the limits of the band, but far too many lack the hook to puncture and really draw blood. It would be easy to blame it on the absence of former bassist/songwriter Nick Oliveri, but the epic Lullabies shutdown that argument for me. That record showed the music could thrive and evolve with less discipline. Hopefully the music will just run a bit wilder on the next one.

By Paul Losada