Don’t call them a side-project because no one in the band would agree. You could call them a supergroup if you want to, but they wouldn’t really agree with that either. Josh Homme (singer/guitarist) of Queens Of The Stone Age and Eagles Of Death Metal fame, Dave Grohl (drummer) from Foo Fighters and the almighty Nirvana, and John Paul Jones (bassist) from the legendary Led Zeppelin see their newly formed band, oddly titled “Them Crooked Vultures”, as a bunch of friends (both new and old) just jamming. You would think that this would go decently well, as Dave and Josh have worked together before on the Queens Of The Stone Age album “Songs For The Deaf” and with Josh providing one guitar part on the Foo Fighters album “In Your Honor”, but it goes WAY more then decently well. It goes “Best Album Of The Year” well.

No one really knew of the band until 3 months ago, but it was talked about before. Dave Grohl said in a 2005 interview that “The next project that I’m trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass. That’s the next album. That wouldn’t suck.” Then Josh Homme’s wife later commented on the band. But for the next few years, no one said anything. Everyone was wondering what happened with the band. Then, out of nowhere, in August of ’09, Them Crooked Vultures played their first ever live show in Chicago. Everyone was buzzing about the band, so they wanted to finally put the buzzing to rest and just say “Here we are.”. So, now that you are filled in, let’s talk about this mind-blowingly amazing album.

The album starts out with the usual concert closer song “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I”. This 5 minute opening song is one of the best if not THE best song on the album. The ending is one of the greatest in any song made before it and all three of the members are strutting their stuff here. It has Josh with his frantic guitar fills, John with his just as frantic bass fills, or Dave with his unmatched drumming (especially at the end). The best part is that this is just a preview for what’s going to be the entire album. But don’t expect it to get any heavier than this song.

As we continue throughout the album, we finally can create genre a for this band: Rockish-jazzish-bluesish-danceish-oddish jam music. We have rock on songs like “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I” and “Mind Eraser, No Chaser”, we have jazzishness on songs like “New Fang” and “Caligulove”, we have bluesishness on the aptly titled “Scumbag Blues” and “Bandoliers”, we have danceishness on “Gunman” and “Dead End Friends” and oddishness on the song “Interlude With Ludes”. I could go on with how diverse this album is, but I think that just explained it.

By the time you finish listening to this album, you have to sit down and think about what you just listened to. It’s all over the place with 5 different genres mixed in one 13 track CD. Not to mention there are two songs which almost reach the 8 minute mark and one that meets the 7 minute mark, which is where the jamming element of it all comes in. But once you start to comprehend what just exploded your mind, you realize that your mind hasn’t exploded for anything better in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

This year has had it’s fair-share of releases. With Paramore’s album, which finally gave us the maturity we have always wanted out of them, “brand new eyes” and Rammstein’s album, which completely made up for how bad “Rosenrot” was, “Liebe Ist Für Alle Da”, I was pretty sure it was going to be a tough choice between those two for album of the year. (Yeah, I did just say that.) But out comes “Them Crooked Vultures” and the choice became so much easier. If you pick up only one album this year, make it “Them Crooked Vultures”. And makes sure it’s on vinyl. It’s better on vinyl… trust me.

“Them Crooked Vultures” gets a very well deserved 5 out of 5.