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Josh Homme went in for a routine knee procedure in late 2011 and "died on a hospitable table." The Queens of the Stone Age frontman was literally brought back to life, only to spend 4 months bedridden before being cleared to resume his life and get to work on Like Clockwork..., the most honest, angry and multi-faceted Queens of the Stone Age album thus far.

Thank God this band is back. QOTSA is one of the most electrifying acts in rock and roll and Homme, standing tall at 6'5", is the stylish jester at the helm. He commands your attention with his every breath and is one of the fiercest guitar players in the game. Homme brought in a cadre of guests to let the world know that he's not only alive and well, but hasn't changed much from the slick, desert rock-hook writing extraordinaire that made a living telling idiots to go fuck themselves
On the album's second track, "I Sat By The Ocean," we're introduced to the best guitar hook on the album. It's so deliciously QOTSA and doesn't seem like as much of a Nirvana-jack as the riff on 2007's "3's & 7's." I can't stop singing the catchy opening lines of this love-lorn tale:I sat by the ocean
And drank a potion
Baby, to erase youIt takes me back to when Spoon opened "Written In Reverse" with lyrics as simple as this and totally pulled it off to the point that you couldn't stop randomly singing it. The best part though, is that it didn't take long in the album for us to hear a decidedly throw-back Queens song. In the shades of classic tracks like "In The Fade" and "In My Head," the sick guitar riffs and perfect pop format are there. It's a breath of fresh air, considering I expected diminishing returns from this band following their last LP, Era Vulgaris. It took a lot of changes in the band and a tumultuous turn of events in Homme's life to conjure up the aggression that he's used in his favor in the past. The Kings of the desert flash that intensity on the album's first single, "My God is the Sun." The MASSIVE bass line progresses into Dave Grohl's heavy metal drums and Homme chants:Heal them, like fire from a gun
Kneeling, my god is the sun
Heal them, with fire from above
Kneeling, my god is the sunThis homage to the desert is one of the sickest breakdowns on the album and this is just so damn musical. Everything I love about QOTSA is present in this song. It's refreshing and comforting to have a force like this on my speakers. But they can slow it down too and on one of the songs of the year, "The Vampyre of Time and Memory," Homme gets behind the piano and harmonically sings the lament of a man who's just woken up from a coma to a sick sad world. A world that leaves him numb and searching for answers. These emotions are best captured through visual artist Boneface's stunning artwork for the album:
"To be vulnerable is needed most of all/ If you intend to truly fall apart

It's this grim outlook of despair that leads Homme to say in an interview that "I wanna be fully exposed." This is the only way he can tell the story of Like Clockwork... He ponders the scenario of a world devoid of existence. He came so close to death and it opens his eyes to how trivial the world around him is and how it makes him depressed. He lets his angst against phonies out on "Fairweather Friends" and reconciles his outlook on "Smooth Sailing" with the snarkiest line of the year:I blow my load over the status quoHell yes! Rock and roll's favorite asshole is back! THIS is the shit I love. There's nothing like seeing Homme pick some drunk idiot out of a crowd and just air em out at a concert. He brings justice to douchebags with his every move. But this incarnation has a certain spirituality to him now, one that's so very much Homme:Shock me awake
Tear me apart
Pinned like a note inside a hospital gown
A prison of sleep
Deeper down
The rabbit hole never to be found
AgainHe paints the world into this post-apocalyptic dystopia, but laughs at death when he stares it in the face. And it's a familiar face for him. It's almost as if he calls out the world for being on the brink of death. What he saw on the other side isn't much different than what he's looking at now when he's awake. This has his themes skewing towards what Trent Reznor (who collaborated on "Kalopsia") draws up with Nine Inch Nails. It took a de-construction of death-defying proportions to bring Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age to lay it all out there. This album was triumphant and Homme "fully exposed" himself on his way to a masterpiece

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#4 is due up tomorrow!