Three years after releasing new music, Queens of the Stone Age return with ‘Easy Street’, a single that probably isn’t what anyone expected from Josh Homme’s band. A new album has not been announced, but this song opens a new stage with a surprisingly naked sound… and, beware, imperfect.
If someone heard it without context, it would be difficult to identify it as a QOTSA song. ‘Easy Street’ is closer to a camp song, with handclaps, vocal harmonies and imperfections deliberately preserved in the recording, as if the Queens were trying to get closer to what Animal Collective or Dirty Projectors do – or did. All of this, of course, without losing the magnetism and vocal presence of Homme, which continues to be the center of gravity of the song. Maybe that, and not so much the musical reinvention, makes the song work.
The lyrics combine black humor, frustration and self-destruction with phrases like “Just shut up and fuck me or shut up and go away” or “Drinking don’t help but it sure blocks out the help”, while the chorus invites you to find yourself in that metaphorical “Easy Street”, a place where “the keys to life” have been hidden under the sofa all the time.
Homme explained that the intention was precisely to escape any overly polished finish: “It’s a bit of a fun song. Like when you hit the funny bone: it’s funny because it hurts and it hurts because it’s funny. You’re being serious, but it’s fun. We made it like you would make a demo. Without clapperboard, leaving the mistakes. It accelerates, it slows down, the palms are not especially good, but they are not bad either, and imperfect palms provide that humanity that you cannot fake.
For now, Queens of the Stone Age have not confirmed that ‘Easy Street’ will be part of an upcoming album. Who does have an album on the way is Mastodon, whose new album, ‘Marrow Deep’, has just presented its first preview, ‘Snakes for Dinner’, a collaboration with Josh Homme himself.
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