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Have you ever played that game with your friends where you cherry-pick musicians from various bands to create your own hypothetical supergroup? Them Crooked Vultures come right out of those rock and roll fantasies to knock you on your ass, teabag you into submission, and leave you begging for more. The combination of Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones sounds just like you’d expect, if what you expect is the sound of those blurry moments between last call and first orgasm. It’s dark, dirty, tastes like sweat, and smells like cigarettes. It’s sex you know you shouldn’t be having, somewhere you shouldn’t be having it.
Them Crooked Vultures is all about the rhythm, which makes the 13 tracks on their debut perfect for those late night after-bar booty calls, cruising with the windows down and the subwoofer cranked, or even just a night at home with bong rips and headphones. Homme has always been at his best working in riffs, and with this dream team rhythm section behind him, the trio locks into a groove and dares you to try to hang on. I wish I was a rapper, because I’d be sampling the shit out of this album, especially the beginning of “Elephants” or the moment in album opener “Nobody Loves Me & Neither Do I” when it seems like they kick everything up to 11 and march the song into a different realm for the second half before turning things over to Grohl to finish it all off with an insane John Bonham-esque finale. The Hammer of the Gods references are inevitable with Jones on board, but T.C.V. isn’t your momma’s Led Zeppelin, unless your momma likes to mix shrooms with her 8 balls and whiskey, take off her top, and dance way too fast to “No Quarter.” (more…)
There are things that an EP is supposed to do, and things many invariably do, making the whole EP concept a source of dread for reviewers. These things are supposed to keep a musician in the spotlight in between proper albums, they’re supposed to hint at new directions without the overt shock of going from country music to goth drone, for instance, and they should make you excited about that upcoming full-length.
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David, Mitzi and I are just back from a week in Vale, and I gotta tell you, I feel energized. Nothing like a couple days on the slopes to clear the mind. You should come out with us sometime. Bring your wife, Yvonne (or whatever) and see for yourself. Bundle up, though—thin white dukes can turn blue very easily out there. Ha!
A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?