The best Queens of the Stone Age (QotSA) album because, out of all their work, their careless, stoner persona has never manifested into a more tangible, distinctive sound than on Era Vulgaris. The band have always been reliably great songwriters, but they’ve always done it while being playful and free of the possible dangers of that lifestyle. Era Vulgaris has them shift their attitude towards a darker direction. One that’s personified by the same blasé distance towards life, but it’s no longer harmless.

The indulgent druggy hedonism has damaged the sound of this album, which has ironically made it into so much more: the production is pompous yet cheap, smokey and burnt out, guitar riffs jangling like they’re ricocheting off of cheap tin can walls and producing a claustrophobic echo throughout the album’s setting.

That setting is the downright dirtiest QotSA have ever been, and I’m lead to believe the dirt was always a large part of the appeal. So fortunately the sludge is poured all over this one and just dripping off of it. Typically one guitar delivers the hooky riff while another complements it sporadically, short swirling chords that are hazy and directionless like thoughts that barely exist before short circuiting into nothing.

Josh Homme has evolved as a vocalist, his routinely drifting falsetto now complementing the dark psychedelic air created by the clever use of organs; each key billowing toxic air. And of course, it’s all very contagious. Being sick in the head and wanting to swill battery acid has never sounded so appealing. Era Vulgaris possesses many mysterious qualities, but none so mysterious as to how it’s so lowly ranked for being “a riff-centric mainstream grab” when aspects such as the impenetrable production and abrasive character would prevent it from being anything of the sort. This needs to be reappraised.