Sunday, November 16, 2008
A+E, Music, Reviews

EAGLES OF DEATH METAL

“HEART ON” (DOWNTOWN RECORDINGS)

For a side project, not only is “Heart On” not bad, it’s arguably better than Josh Homme’s main act. So if this becomes his day job, the Queens of the Stone Age frontman will prove to be one of very few musicians who needn’t get serious to make convincing music.

Eagles of Death Metal features plenty of faux-boogie, faux-hard rock poses, craptastic dance beats and the musical competence to turn humorous spoofs into real-life tunes. The guitar solo in “WannaBe In L.A.” is a perfectly ludicrous brain-fart in which a guitarist’s impotent rage turns into knotted notes. “(I Used to Couldn’t Dance) Tight Pants” uses cranky guitar chords that sound lifted from Randy Newman’s hard-rock goof “I’m Dead But I Don’t Know It,” and a dance-floor groove borrowed from that white funkster best known as Beck.

“Now I’m a Fool” paces itself like a reflective ’70s tune, as a guy lets us know he’s not the man we think he is. “Cheap Thrills” twists on a Stones lick and vocals swallowed by reverb. “Prissy Prancin’” borrows another Stones riff, and spooks it out with a rent party’s celebratory ambience.

It’s all a bit like a Ween album with angrier, tougher roots, though the Eagles are careful to rarely swallow the bongwater. “Solo Flights” comes closest, as its call to masturbatory arms is sung with alarming urgency, while “I’m Your Torpedo” features a nifty whistling solo to conclude things on a, well, whistling note. 3.5 STARS—Rob O’Connor