Lullabies To Paralyze is Lullabies To Paralyze.

Well, I guess there's no avoiding it. Everybody's got to talk about it. The band has changed. Nick Oliveri, bassist and vocalist on QOTSA's second and third album, was fired in 2004.
Note that he wasn't on the first album. Well, he did appear on the packaging, and he had a little hidden phone thing at the end of the album, but in actuality the album was just Josh Homme and a drummer.

Then again, their first album is my least favorite, so maybe it could be a problem.

But... it isn't, really.

The first thing you need to know about this album is that it's not Songs for the Deaf 2. The second thing you need to know about this album is that it's not QOTSA 2. The third thing you need to know about this album is that it's not R 2 (nor is it D2) -- but that probably would be the best comparison, if you had to make one. The bottom line remains, though, that QOTSA is QOTSA, R is R, and Songs for the Deaf is Songs for the Deaf. And Lullabies To Paralyze is Lullabies To Paralyze.

If this album is a sequel, it's a sequel to the first three albums as a whole. The first three albums had a "desert" sound to them. This album appears to move out of the desert and into the forest. It begins with songs that somewhat resemble Songs for the Deaf and gradually becomes more dark, more mysterious, and more romantic. This, after all, is how it's been advertised, by Homme and by the packaging.

It's really a more personal album than the past few, lyrically bearing the most resemblance to the self-titled album. R was mostly an objective journey through vices, and Songs for the Deaf was a directionless road trip of sorts. "This Lullaby" is like a sign guiding traffic, "Medication" is like almost missing the exit, and "Everybody Knows That You Are Insane" is like the end of the road trip, and on "Tangled Up In Plaid" the band members get out of their car and start to march through the woods, having lost one of their friends and not sure what to do next. (More specifically, they threw Nick out of the car during "Song for the Deaf", which is why he was screaming so much during that song, and then they all laughed, and then Josh sat down and played "Mosquito Song" to lyrically lead into Lullabies To Paralyze.)

So all this is basically leading up to the part where I say THIS ALBUM RULES. It's totally new, it's bold, it's daring, it's sweet, it's confusing. This album evolves QOTSA's sound, proving that when they say they'll never make the same album twice, they mean it. You can't predict what this album is like, even if you're the biggest QOTSA fan in the world. You just have to hear it.

The drumming is... Well, first of all, would anyone even be talking about the drumming if not for Dave Grohl's appearance on Songs for the Deaf? Anyone aside from drummers and die-hard QOTSA fans? Probably not. It just isn't the first thing you notice. And if nobody knew who was drumming on Songs for the Deaf, I guarantee you that 75% of all comments about the drumming on that album and this album would not exist. It's not that people wouldn't notice, necessarily, it's just that they wouldn't still be talking about it.
But anyway, Joey Castillo does a fine job on the drums. No complaints here, and he definitely shines on certain tracks. There are some really great rhythms going on and they sound tight.

And then we've got the bass. Well, to be honest, I never particularly got a feel for Nick Oliveri's style of bass-playing. The bass all sounds cool here, though. It particularly stands out on tracks like "Burn the Witch", "Little Sister", and "Broken Box" -- a track that almost has no guitar until the second verse. The bass sometimes has an interesting distorted sound to it. Throughout the album it's played by Alain Johannes, Josh Homme, and Troy Van Leeuwen (in other words, like, everyone). Once again, no complaints here.

One of the things I loved about Songs for the Deaf is that they did such a diverse collection of songs using almost no "outside" instruments. Just guitar, bass, drums, and a little bit of piano or something once in a while. This album bucks that trend a little, which is one of the reasons it's more like R, but overall, the band still knows its limits. The brass section and flutes are used sparingly, but effectively. The piano appears more frequently than ever, but it's used very tastefully and becomes a necessary part of the music -- hence, they perform with a keyboardist now. Basically, you won't be getting any overblown rock opera here. Not that rock opera is inherently overblown, but it's just not QOTSA's style.
As for diversity, this is probably the most diverse album they've ever done. Moreso than ever before, each song really stands out. No song feels like maybe it could've been scrapped, or reworked to combine with another song. There are quite a few styles here, but once again, the band never wanders too far off track. They've evolved, but they haven't lost anything. Sure, they've "lost" the heaviness of QOTSA and Songs for the Deaf, but R wasn't totally heavy either.

Something I've found in the 3 days that I've had the album so far is that I really haven't been able to bring myself to listen to any other music. Other music just seems obsolete, including QOTSA's own work. I'm sure this period will wear off eventually -- at least, I hope it does, so I can enjoy music as a whole again -- but it's a testament to how interesting this music is. I can't judge for sure just yet whether or not this album is better than Songs for the Deaf, but the chances are looking pretty good. I'm already certain that it's better than QOTSA and R. It just seems to make those albums look a bit primitive by comparison. The melodies here -- instrumentally and vocally -- generally seem a lot more complex, even when they're repetitive and simple. QOTSA's most complex and unusual songs to date -- "No One Knows", "Hangin' Tree", "Better Living Through Chemistry", "I Think I Lost My Headache", and others -- seem like baby steps now. Even though Lullabies To Paralyze sort of has more pop flavor to it than the past three albums (although there are some very obvious exceptions), it's still more complex. That doesn't make much sense, but apparently it made sense to the band, and so it works.

Nick Oliveri's absence is evident, but not a problem. Like Songs for the Deaf, this album is almost flawless, and whatever flaws it does have are usually more a result of things not quite appealing to me rather than a result of the band's failure. The wait was disturbingly painful, but now it's over, and it was, stereotypically enough, worth it.


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This Lullaby
Mark Lanegan makes his sole lead vocal performance on this minute-and-a-half acoustic medieval frolic. It's somewhat unexpected, yet somehow extremely appropriate. It sounds like a Christmas song. Sort of like "Greensleeves".

Medication
This song sounds unlike the rest of the album in terms of mixing and production. It's loose and rough, with Josh's vocals low in the background and high on the reverb. It's a two-minute introductory piece along the lines of "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" and "You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire". It has a fast tempo, mostly stays on one chord, and occasionally shifts to higher chords. It sometimes has a rhythm that resembles "Six Shooter".

Everybody Knows That You Are Insane
The song begins with a Desert Sessions-style waltz reminiscent of the ending of "Dead In Love", swinging you back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until it finally swings you straight into a brick wall of pure head-bang as the chorus blasts off and takes the song in a totally different, but still strangely cohesive, direction. Then it changes direction further with a somewhat Foo Fighters-esque second verse where the guitar jumps from speaker to speaker. Basically, you could listen to three different clips of this song and not know they're from the same song.

Tangled Up In Plaid
"Come, let's play along
and let each other lose
A win would cause an alarm
Don't matter to me, don't matter to you"
In a way, this song sounds like the offspring of the somewhat lackluster "Do It Again" and the incomparably awesome "The Sky Is Fallin'". This is where things begin to get dark. The verses are fairly mellow, accentuated by percussive piano and jittery guitar. The guitar revs up once we get to the chorus. It's very cool and mysterious.

Burn the Witch
This song is almost like a slowed down "No One Knows" with the sinister Blues sentiment of "God Is In the Radio". It's got an addictive marching rhythm and an insanely catchy hook. And I don't mean "insanely" as a synonym for "very". I challenge you to listen to this song and not spend the next few hours marching around and humming "BUM-BUM ahh-ah-ahhhhh, BUM-BUM ahh-ah-ahh-ah..." to yourself. And that's not all! Mark Lanegan adds backing vocals here, but also, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons contributes some cool guitar solos. The group vocals are great, especially that one part before the second chorus where they all howl a few times.
This is the song they played on Conan O'Brien, by the way.

In My Head
This is a faster version of "In My Head... Or Something" from Desert Sessions Vol 9/10. (It's also slightly different from the version that appears in Need For Speed Underground 2.) It generally fits in more with the QOTSA style. It's overall more rockin'. The keyboard is still there, but less prominent. The song is overall less repetitive than its predecessor; they've filled in some of the final repetitions of the chorus with a dreamy crooning section and an improved final guitar solo. Most importantly, the chorus itself has received a re-arrangement that makes the chords stand out more.
For those who haven't heard the original, this is a dreamy lovesick song that feels like a somewhat more laid-back "Go With The Flow".

Little Sister
A pretty straightforward rock song with some unconventionality to it. It ends with a pretty cool guitar solo. Honestly, it's probably one of the weakest songs on the album, but it does live up to its full potential. It serves its purpose pretty well. There's some very good instrumentation to appreciate, too.

I Never Came
"Can't call it leaving, 'cause it's just
I never came..."
This has become the sleeper hit of the album for me. Not the best song on the album, necessarily, but the most surprising. It's a mellow piece that definitely begins to evoke R rather than Songs for the Deaf, somewhat resembling "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" and "Better Living Through Chemistry". Don't let the comparisons fool you, though -- it's a completely new type of song for QOTSA. Josh's vocals are probably the best they've ever been here, highly melancholy and sweet. The chorus ends on some unpredictable chords, and that gets me every time. I know that if I had written the first half of the chorus the way it is, I would have finished it in a more conventional way, but instead, the second half hangs on a certain chord longer than expected. It's a subtle thing, but it works really well. Then, after the chorus, we get the perfect mellow guitar solo. It's very soulful. This guitar solo appears again to finish the song, joined by some subtle horns that briefly make it sound like the M*A*S*H theme or something. But in a good way. And I don't even like the M*A*S*H theme.

Someone's In the Wolf
It is at this point that you wet yourself. It's a dark and deadly journey through fairy-tale woods. More importantly, the guitar riffs are absolutely killer. Literally, the first time I heard them, I had difficulty breathing. The riffs are like a mix of "The Sky Is Fallin'", "Leg of Lamb", "Song for the Dead", and "Walkin' On the Sidewalks", sort of. With an oddly dark funk to 'em. There's also some sinister brass and even some flutes to add to the epic soundscape. It ends with a long quiet section that's mostly bass and sound effects, which charges back into the opening riff that gets faster and faster and faster until it abruptly ends with the sound of a knife being sharpened. It sounds like someone is running away from the wolf and he runs behind a tree, turns around, and sees that the wolf is right behind him and then blacks out. It's an epic 7-minute piece that hijacks the album and sends it into its second phase, where things go bump in the night. It's a bit repetitive and some might not be able to get past that, but I think it's all very necessary.

The Blood Is Love
"Open up your mouth
Touch your lips to mine
That we may make a kiss
That can pierce through death and survive"
Another long song, and also pretty repetitive, but once again I think it works. When Josh Homme described this album as "dark and romantic", surely this was one of the songs he had in mind. It begins as a strange circus waltz, then kicks into a dark groove reminiscent of the Desert Sessions' "Subcutaneous Phat". Once in a while it switches back into 3/4. There are a lot of other cool rhythmic tricks, especially the tricky switch in the line "That we may make a kiss...". Overall this is very dark and moody. It seems to be about a dead lover.
And apparently it was only played once. And it'll grow on you if you're not hooked on the first listen.

Skin On Skin
We now move on from those dark introspections to something decidedly less intellectual.
Not really a sex song; more like "sex in song form". That basically covers it. No context or anything, similar to "Feel Good Hit of the Summer". It's really twisted and bizarre, with crazy guitar effects and crazy sound effects. Thankfully, while the subject matter is clear, it's not actually very vulgar. It's fairly respectable, though perhaps a bit embarrassing. Musically, it certainly may be the worst song on the album, but unlike "Gonna Leave You" or "Do It Again" from the last album, it doesn't feel at all like filler. It's exactly what it needs to be and nothing less. It doesn't feel like it's missing anything. And it definitely does grow on you, even if it never stops being your least favorite.

Broken Box
"Tears from the sky, in pools of pain
Well, baby, tonight I'm gonna go and dance in the rain"
This is definitely one for fans of the self-titled album, and possibly also for fans of Eagles of Death Metal. It's got a simple but very cool-sounding drum rhythm that's very hard-hitting and crisp, with almost a whip-like sound. The first half of the song seems to be riffed solely by a distorted bass with some guitar flavor. After the first chorus, the song takes a brief break to restart the drum rhythm, and then the guitar finally joins in the riff. It's a whole lot of fun, and it's really genius the way they did it. It's so much more exciting than if the guitar had been there from the start. This song somehow combines the rawness of the self-titled album with the sweetness of songs like "Go with the Flow".

You've Got a Killer Scene There, Man
This is a great lead-in to the album's finale. Skipping right to "Long Slow Goodbye" would've been a big mistake. This song slows things down from "Broken Box" and also has a bit of an eerie feel to it, so basically, there's nowhere on the album it would fit better. It's quite possibly one of the "coolest" songs ever written, perfectly conveying a laid-back and sassy mood. It's got a great nightclub atmosphere, accentuated by the other voices joining Josh -- the "Sultry Vocals" by Shirley Manson & Brody Dalle, the "Vultry Socals" by Chris Goss, the "Salty Vocals" by Mark Lanegan, and others. Plus, Josh's own voice sounds quite different in this song. It has a bit of the vibe of the Desert Sessions' "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu" (which was possibly going to be recorded for this album), except it's a lot darker.

Long Slow Goodbye
And now Josh is on his own again, away from the macho posturing of the last three songs.
It's another very unexpected song for the QOTSA catalogue. It's mellow. It begins with a frustrated phone experience that ends with a busy signal, which cleverly segues into the acoustic guitar rhythm. The guitar plays a steady chord and rhythm throughout. After the first verse, the drums, bass, and electric guitar come in. The bass, by the way, is very well-done, often evoking R. Josh's melancholy vocals shine once again here. Really, it's one heck of a song. It's a fairly simple ballad for the ages, and surely it's extremely accessible, but it's definitely something special. It's highly emotional without being sappy, and that's very hard to do. The song fades out as Josh's vocals don't fade at all, and the busy signal comes back again and fades out. Not content to let the song end on that gimmick, the band re-surges again for a few more seconds of playing.


The album ends with a brief brass-and-flute piece which, like "This Lullaby", has a very medieval feel to it.