Hear Queens of the Stone Age’s Diabolical Rocker ‘The Evil Has Landed’
Queens of the Stone Age released a diabolical new rocker, “The Evil Has Landed,” from their upcoming album Villains, out August 25th via Matador.
The sprawling track opens with a spry blues metal groove and Josh Homme singing in a falsetto that sounds both sweet and sinister. As the song pulses forward, the blown-out guitars of “The Evil Has Landed” jump between crunchy riffing and psych-tinged freakouts, building slowly to the song’s surprising conclusion, a classic rock & roll vamp with Homme sneering, “Here we come/ Get outta’ the way/ Matters not/ What the people say.”
“The Evil Has Landed” follows previously released Villains track “The Way You Used to Do.” Villains, co-produced by Mark Ronson, marks Queens of the Stone Age‘s first album since 2013’s …Like Clockwork.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Homme spoke about wanting to make the Queens of the Stone Age sound more danceable and why he asked Ronson to produce. “I think maybe music people might not understand the vast overlap of the curves between Ronson and Queens,” Homme said. “If you listen to ‘Uptown Funk,’ you hear that tight, kind of vacuous dry sound, and that’s where I wanted to take this new Queens record. I wanted it to be like our record Songs for the Deaf, but looking at it with goggles on underwater – that kind of clarity. Also, he’s as obsessed with drum beats as I am.”
Queens of the Stone Age will embark on a North American tour in support of Villains beginning September 6th in Port Chester, New York.