Queens of the Stone Age: Villains (2LP, etching on side 4) [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads Villains over three playing sides with an etching on the fourth, in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves, a lyric insert and a download card. It gave the band their first No. 1 album in the UK and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Etched fourth side
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeves
• Lyric insert
• Download card included

About the album

Nobody had Josh Homme down as a man who wanted to make people dance, yet here we are. Taken with Mark Ronson's work on the Bruno Mars hit Uptown Funk, Homme brought him in to produce, and the result is the loosest, most limber Queens record in years: the riffs still crunch, but they're riding easy disco beats and chilly synths. It's also the first Queens album with Jon Theodore as a full-time drummer, and the first with no guests at all, just the five of them.

"Feet Don't Fail Me" builds from an a cappella intro into a strutting groove, "The Way You Used to Do" is a swinging, hand-clapping rocker, "The Evil Has Landed" stretches out and "Un-Reborn Again" tips its hat to T. Rex. The closing "Villains of Circumstance" was a song Homme first played solo at James Lavelle's Meltdown festival in 2014.

Critics agreed, with a Metacritic score of 81 and a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Boneface came back to draw the cover, the first time the band ever asked the same artist twice, which by Queens standards amounts to a long-term relationship.

Also at Kops: more Queens of the Stone Age on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE-1125-1), the 2017 album.