Are you listening....really listening to Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stoneage? How does one listen to "Songs for the Deaf" you ask with trepidation...well its simple, you open your ears, throw caution to the wind and the Californian magic will flood in.
The myth is often so much better than the reality. Itâs great to hear  about the excess, but the hangovers are less often recorded. Great to  hear about the drugs, but less to hear about the dependency. Brilliant  to witness the amazing rockânâroll, much less brilliant to be present at  the soundcheck.
The achievement of Queens of the Stoneage is to do all three: be masters of the myth, deal with the reality, and be masters of their rock as well.
âSongs For The Deafâ, their third album, finds them capitalising on this  unique position, and nearly all of what you might want from them and  their music is here. There are great titles (âYou Think I Ainât Worth A  Dollar But I Feel Like A Millionaireâ), displays of extraordinary  rockânâroll (âA Song For the Deafâ) and great disturbing pop (âNo-one  Knowsâ), and they all contribute to Queen's mystique. Having begun as a straightforward three-piece band, theyâre  now something else altogether. Their world â sexual, drug-filled, and  occasionally paranoid â has become progressively darker, and as such we  find them nothing less than guardians of the rock flame.
Itâs an intoxicating story, and obviously one thatâs no less exciting to musicians. So here, joining full-time Queens members Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri are â once again â former Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan, and Dave Grohl of Nirvana / Foo Fighters fame. Importantly, these are the sort of  people who have seen a lot and done a lot, but also those who are  pretty consistently on top of their game. Itâs a dream team.... and then some!
So a voice announces âI need a sagaâŚâ and, sure enough, one begins. Of course, it takes in what are for QOTSA  some routine stops â pills, punk rock, dark humor and death â but  âSongs For The Deafâ is an album very aware that these in themselves are  neither empirically interesting, or even anything new. âNo One Knowsâ  and âFirst It Givethâ  stamp a dark mood on the record that never quite  lets up â instead, it creates a woozy, disorientating world of sound  that attempts to find the most innovative way possible of visiting  signature rock subjects. There are still moments of release here  (thereâs the great âGonna Leave Youâ, âAnother Love Songâ and the  Lanegan-sung âHanginâ Treeâ), but the greatest achievement of âSongs For  The Deafâ is that it isnât an album that tells you what it was like â  this is one that puts you right there.
