Queens of the Stone Age-...Like Clockwork ALBUM REVIEW

Queens of the Stone Age - peddlers of heavy, yet totally catchy rock – fit into the category of bands that have one classic album in their discography that everything they have ever released since is always compared to. Songs for the Deaf, of course, is that one album. While some may argue that Rated R which preceded it is equally as good, Songs for the Deaf gets the edge for it's more successful marriage of thick, stoner metal guitar work with a Beatles-esque pop sensibility. It was an artistic triumph in that it could go from being mainstream and poppy (“Go With the Flow”, “Do It Again”) then all of a sudden morph into something completely unfit for commercial radio (“Six Shooter”, the title track.) It’s a compelling listen from start to finish, and should seriously be owned by everyone who gives even the slightest damn about heavy music.

METAL (Monday) MOUTH-OFF: Guilty Pleasures

   Enjoying certain bands, especially while being a metalhead, can be a little sketchy when you aren't surrounded by very positive and open-minded people. For example, talking about how much you love Avenged Sevenfold to a neckbeard who owns two boxes of late '80s black metal and death metal demo tapes and thinks that Master of Puppets deserves a zero out of ten compared to Holy Terror's Terror and Submission could earn you a heavy wooden speaker to the head (because a "trve" hesher doesn't use no particle board lightweights.) Avenged Sevenfold, Poison, Disturbed, KoRn, and Ratt are all bands that may earn you a blunt, heavy projectile to your noggin and  fit the "guilty pleasure" description in the metal world. They are bands that are considered by-and-large to "suck" and you simply aren't "trve" if you really enjoy their music. But honestly, are there really such things as "guilty pleasures" in music to begin with?