Four years in the making, Queens of the Stone Age’s new album is a polished beauty, blending hard rock
with the heart of boogie. Their seventh album Villains spreads leather jacket vibes as the music wreaks havoc with
its energy and darkening lyrics. It is these electric current sparks that ignite this album into one of pure lure — it is
an absolute joy ride.
The song “Feet Don’t Fail Me” is welcoming the listener into a world of sirens as the music escalates to a
screeching glare. All on their own, Queens of the Stone Age blends Nine Inch Nails’s industrial heart to create a
song of their own making.
Throughout the album, the electric guitar carries the instrumentals and the lyrics into the fourth
dimension of rock, boogie, and sparks. With the song “The Evil Has Landed,” it blurs The White Stripes with the
band’s own definition of alternative rock. And with “Domesticated Animals,” the band welcomes the listener into
the Devil’s welcoming grasps. It’s dark and brutal, but utterly honest with its lyrics of longing for freedom,
opportunity, and control which, when listening to the song, seem to plague Queens of the Stone Age’s heartless
and cruel world full of villains (but are they really?).
But of all their songs igniting with passion and ambition, “Hideaway” is their most sober. Starting with a
calmer — yet always creeping with looming shadows — entrance, the song hides its hyper energy among the chords
of a radioactive machine ready to spark.
Though Villains is more polished than their predecessor …Like Clockwork which was more lively and free
with its rules (there were none), the band’s newest album is just as eccentric and enigmatic, paving the alternative
rock industry for the future.
However, there is an exception to the band’s adoration and praise. “The Way You Used to Do” is the
bombshell of the album, much like Panic! At the Disco’s “Victorious,” which played on almost every radio and was
one of the band’s most noticeable songs from their album Death of a Bachelor, but not their greatest contribution
to the alternative industry. “The Way You Used to Do” is not the greatest contender for a heart wrenching and
foot-stomping song, not compared to the album’s other offerings.

But even with this downfall, the album is not dragged down to the bottom of the ocean (nor was Death of
a Bachelor); instead, it’s just one of those songs you may want to skip, or if you like the more pop alternative to
rock, then listen to it, you imposter.
Queens of the Stone Age has continued to mold new albums that all seem to be made for different artistic
preferences, and Villains is no exception. The album is just one you don’t hear on the radio; in fact, that’s rather a
good thing. The listener can cherish this album next to his or her bosom, hold it close, and forget about the
unpolished world and meld into the one speckled with villains (although, isn’t this one already full of them?).