Queens of the Stone Age were widely heralded as ‘the biggest thing to come out of America since Nirvana’ around their second album, Rated R. While that is at least a fine album, their two albums since – Songs For The Deaf and Lullabies To Paralyze – seem to have done little more than tread water and, on this evidence, I don’t hold much hope of the forthcoming Era Vulgaris being much better.

Maybe the band lost some creativity with the departure of Nick Oliveri, or maybe Josh Homme is simply happy to knock-out identikit QOTSA-by-numbers tunes and soak up the plaudits, but radio single ‘3’s & 7’s’ is no ‘If Only’ or ‘Lost Art of Keeping A Secret’ and would be merely average album filler on either of their first two records.

The download-only single ‘Sick, Sick, Sick’ is little different, despite an appearance from Julian Casablancas of The Strokes. In fact, neither make any lasting impression, and both are soon forgotten. At this rate, it’s hard to believe QOTSA were once so highly regarded.

(2/5)