As befits QOTSA’s erstwhile naked bass devil, it’s a ballsy move for Nick Oliveri to go virtually head-to-head against the new Queens album with the third in a series of six-track compilations proudly trumpeting his relative lack of success. Still, there’s something fantastically no-fucks-given about the project, collecting tracks Oliveri has sung on with a revolving collection of bands and musicians, here including Kyuss Lives!, Melissa Auf der Maur, Dwarves and a drummer called Rectom.
Here he goes, coming on like Robert Plant with his larynx on fire on R’N’R Outlaw by Royal Daemons, ranting manically through the oil-smoke garage blues of Dwarves’ Luv Is Fiction and revelling in his metallic desert psych roots on Kyuss Lives!’s anti-industry anthem Kyuss Dies! – ‘Here come the suits and ties, Kyuss dies!’
Judging by his frenzied rendition of Sabbath’s The Mob Rules with Auf der Maur and the none-less-country Country As Fuck with Plan B, QOTSA are a far tamer beast without him.
