Australian Penthouse

THEM CROOKED VULTURES
Self-titled
Sony

THE debut album for the supergroup of Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones. Whether you buy it out of curiosity or a genuine passion for the trio’s back-catalogue, rest assured that Them Crooked Vultures is no Audioslave.

Star amalgams have a record of revealing a glass jaw against the power of expectation. One might think that a band with Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss as its backbone would get it wrong as a collaboration, but while the influences of the trio are obvious in every track, the band never veers too close to its origins: there’s no cashing in on past glories; this is about breaking new ground. And it’s exciting to hear. The riffs are strong and dirty, the bass lines threaded with titanium, and the drumming unparalleled and kinetic.

Highlights include: ‘Dead End Friends’; ‘Very Ape’; ‘Scumbag Blues’; ‘Caligulove’; and ‘Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I’.