Stone age kicks

reviewed queens of the stone ageglasgow barrowlandsHHHH Everyone laughed when Joe Elliot asked: "I suppose a rock's out of the question?" on DefLeppard's dickhead anthem Let's Get Rocked. But while Elliot and his dunces wisely got out of our sight, the fact remains it's surprisingly difficult to get a good hard rocking these days. All the bands who use loud guitars are copycat kids, or posers, or affected nu-metal boo-babies.

But this is exactly where Queens Of The Stone Age come in. And they bring all hell with them - the kind of bang-bang chugga-chugga bastard noise that makes you want to drink petrol and fight truckers. It's been called "desert rock" and "stoner rock" - masterminds Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme do gigs out with the coyotes and the peyote in California. But the word for it is "proper". It smells of evil drugs and ugly sex and noseblood.

Actually, the first few tracks are too muddy and muted to crack your brain the way they should, and Oliveri has uncharacteristically decided not to play naked. But when the demon riff of You Think I Ain't Worth A Dime busts in, things get pure and clear and rough up the front. It's not just slab-work and masonry either.

Homme and Oliveri work great paranoid dynamics under the riffs, the songs fine detailed with ability and dark experience. Friend and legend Mark Lanegan comes on to sing a few, his grave-deep voice giving Hangin' Tree a gothic American pathos.

"Shhhh!" says Oliveri during encore Regular John, wanting everyone to listen to the elegance of Homme's fiddly quiet bit.

"Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!" responds the crowd: appreciation through disobedience.

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