So often, musical groups try to steal and end up copying. Them Crooked Vultures have pulled off at least a half-dozen perfect heists on this debut record. Legendary.
In the face of conventional wisdom that asserts rock has nothing left to give and can only be plundered for remixes here is proof that technical mastery can unlock new rooms of possibility and unknowable feeling.
If you believe that musical culture is a dialectical conversation, Them Crooked Vultures are the rare synthesis of several styles (techniques, tastes) where the sum is greater than its parts. A phase transition.
As a response to computer-aided music, Them Crooked Vultures leap past the last decade’s trend towards sloppiness, rejecting the claim that only naif and primitive players can be sincere. Instead, the trio delights in pulling off magic tricks – by definition, acts you don’t notice but for their impossible by-products; the white rabbit, the lovely lady cut in two. These are the moments that sound too good to be true. The turns of phrase that turn heads and inspire hope by remaining mysterious, fleeting.
Then there are the many moments that sound good because they are so true, so familiar. The genuine expression of a harmonic “faith” once preached by The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Layered into a chorus (with a computer, natch), lead singer Josh Homme becomes a fab four of one, as charismatic and erotic as Robert Plant or Mick Jagger ever were on their best nights.