News

Queen Of The Stone Age's Eponymous Debut To Be Re-Issued

• 18th Jan 2011

We are delighted to report that Domino has entered into a working relationship with Joshua Homme’s Rekords Rekords label, to market, promote and distribute selected titles from their catalogue. The first title will be the seminal eponymous debut album from Queens Of The Stone Age, which we will reissue on March 7th.

Domino will also be releasing Rekords Rekords albums from Mini Mansions and Alain Johannes in May.

But back to the beginning…

Upon the dissolution of the criminally overlooked Kyuss, guitarist Josh Homme pulled up stakes from the California Desert for the Pacific Northwest to work on a new project concurrent with spending time on the road as second guitarist in Screaming Trees. Seeking a new sound, Homme discarded the sludgy low-end expanses of his former band for much tighter song structure (for the most part) and honest-to-goodness capital ‘H’ hooks and what was originally christened Gamma Ray was quickly changed to Queens Of The Stone Age shortly after birth.

Homme returned to his old stomping grounds and reunited with latter day Kyuss drummer Alfredo Hernandez to record as a fake trio (bass player “Carlo Von Sexron” is a nom-de-boom for Homme) and QOTSA came into full bloom. If this re-issue doesn’t document “hour zero,” it’s only a few minutes past. “Regular John” introduces Homme as a smooth and assured vocalist with great melodic instinct. Tracks like “Avon” and “Walkin On Sidewalks” lock into heavy riffs that are in entrancing in their repetition and subtle shifts. And it’s hard to believe that insistently catchy “How To Handle A Rope” didn’t make a greater impact on mainstream radio upon its initial release. Amidst the mid-fi riffage and willful experimentalism of an artist forging a new sound for himself are some killer guitar melodies that could have easily come from 1971, 1991 or 2011. And that’s part of the timelessness of this unassuming debut album. QOTSA can only truly be classified as a “rock band;” Any attempt to narrow that down further would be to neglect the scope of Homme’s broad body of work and the band’s wide-reaching appeal.

This Rekords Records re-issue, in conjunction with Domino, has been fully remastered from the original tapes and has been expanded by three tracks. “The Bronze” & “These Aren’t the Droids Your Looking For” (from the split EP from ‘98) and “Spiders and Vinegaroons” which was part of the posthumous Kyuss/QOTSA split EP. Listen to album opener, Regular John, here: link

Queens Of The Stone Age will be available on CD (REK001CD), double vinyl LP (REK001LP) and via digital download (REK001D). The tracklisting is as follows:

1 – Regular John 8 – Mexicola
2 – Avon 9 – Hispanic Impressions
3 – If Only 10 – You Cant Quit Me Baby
4 – Walkin On The Sidewalks 11 – These Arent the Droids You’re Looking For
5 – You Would Know 12 – Give the Mule What he Wants
6 – The Bronze 13 – Spiders and Vinegaroons
7 – How to Handle a Rope 14 – I Was A Teenage Hand Model