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So you invite some friends to your place in the desert, hang around a bit, do some drugs and record some jams. This is the recipe of Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme's 'Desert Sessions' series. The first 6 installments were released on Man's Ruin, but that label went bankrupt, so now Homme has created his own, Rekords Rekords. The question is whether it is interesting to listen to some drugged up musicians fooling around. For most of the previous Sessions the answer was "no", but numbers 7 & 8 turned out surprisingly well. Only 5 of the 13 tracks are lame jokes or annoying novelty tracks and the 8 real songs are all very good. But from the combined talents of Homme, Chris Goss (Masters Of Reality), Mark Lanegan and Natasha Schneider and Alain Johannes (Eleven, but also responsible for much of the music on Chris Cornell's 'Euphoria Morning') anything less than "very good" would have been unacceptable.
The CD opens right away with the most experimental track; 'Don't Drink The Poison' is Balkan folk music on testosterone provided by a marching drum rhythm. The Mark Lanegan sung 'Hanging Tree' is a lot more straightforward and would not be out of place on a QotSA album. The same goes for 'Polly Wants A Crack Rock', which is your typical Nick Olivieri-style screamer, including the obligatory twisted background vocals. Strangely enough Olivieri is not present on these Desert Sessions, but Nick ElDorado of Likehell manages to sound just as fucked up, which is no small feat. 'Up In Hell' again has a Balkan vibe, but is slightly more convential than 'Don't Drink The Poison'. It is sung by Schneider, who also handles the vocals duties on the next track and album highlight, 'Nenada'. This is about the only track where Homme shows why he has a reputation as a guitar god (on most tracks he plays bass or drums). His great riff, Schneider's Russian(!) vocals and lots of handclaps make this one of this year most memorable tracks. 'The Idiots Guide' is again a more QotSA-like track, but warped enough to qualify for Mars. 'Cold Sore Superstars' is a Broadway song played by zombies on crack who love the Beatles. Catchy. 'Making A Cross', the last real song on the album, sounds like something from Chris Cornell's 'Euphoria Morning'. Maybe Alain Johannes had this one still lying around from those sessions. The vocal melody seems taylor made for Cornell and is just a bit too difficult for Johannes himself. Too bad, because it is a great song.
So the mix of material is a bit inconsistent and there are those fillers ('Winners' and 'Interpretive Reading' are especially annoying), but 'Don't Drink The Poison', 'Nenada' and 'Cold Sore Superstars' are among the best and most original music released this year. You decide.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/desert-sessions/7-8/1074/
Meer Desert Sessions op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/desert-sessions
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