Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Written November 2009

2010 definitely seems to be the year for new and upcoming artists. With Talent shows like the X-Factor (heard of it?) showing no signs of leaving us alone just yet, and companies such as Fiat (previous credentials involve some cars and being French) launching its new ‘Evo-Music Rooms’ contest to find and fulfil the star spangled dreams of some young indie band with large hair and skinny jeans, it looks like 2010 could be the year for new acts.

2010 then, definitely another year for fresh artists to hit the radio-waves and stages of the nation, with underground sensation The XX beginning to find a mainstream audience and superstars Biffy Clyro planning another side project – one that you could be in. Artists like Florence + the Machine and Little Boots are carrying music over into 2010 quite nicely, having both found their niche in 2009. This is all brilliant of course; the rhythmic, vocally amazing Florence seems like one of the best artists yet to be part of the new direction of music, yet far too many people seem to have completely missed one of the biggest, jaw-dropping pieces of news to have come out of music since Courtney Love came home to an awful mess in the shed.

I’m talking about none other than Them Crooked Vultures, a name that usually has to be repeated a few times before even the most avid music fan will recognise the surprised/disappointed look on your face and clamour desperately for information that might save their ‘cool’. Most of these blank faces will feel like they missed out on a rather large piece of news there, and that’s because they did. Them Crooked Vultures, despite floating around as a concept since 2005, finally released their self-titled debut album at the end of 2009 – an album which reversed the trend of many modern artists, in that it deserved more hype than it got.

So what is it that makes Them Crooked Vultures such an amazing band; why exactly am I writing about them as though their guitarist is Jesus? The concept is simple. You take a dash of Californian rockers Queens of the Stone Age, a piece of English rock-gods Led Zeppelin, and a slice of American hard-rockers Foo Fighters and see what you get. It’s not even like we just mean a band with great influences, because although this rings true, what Them Crooked Vultures is actually about is Josh Homme (Guitars and lead vocals), John Paul Jones (bass guitar, keyboards, slide guitar, synthesizer, mandolin etc), and Dave Grohl (drums and percussion) coming together to see just what happens.

I’ll be honest, once the news had reached me there was little anyone could do to stop me heading out to buy the album; the prospect of 3 music gods meeting in one studio to record brand new material? Amazing. So just what does happen when 3 legends of rock run into each other in a studio in Los Angeles and decide to make the most awesome record ever?

The result is something weird and wonderful, the result of experimental guitar rhythms and foot-stompingly catchy riffs complete with a juxtaposition of straight and simple yet punchy drum rhythms which drive the music forwards like a thousand-horsepower Bugatti Veyron. On top of this, Homme’s vocals compliment the obscurity of the riffs and rhythms in a somewhat ineffable way. The album showcases Dave Grohl on drums and percussion in a stable band for the first time since he briefly played for Queens of the Stone Age in 2002, and before that his position as drum-man of a little grunge band called Nirvana. Josh Homme’s musical history comprises mainly of the acclaimed Queens of the Stone Age, as well as side project Kyuss. I think it’s fair to say that the musical influence of QOTSA comes across clearly in TCV in lyrical obscurity and riff-based and crunchy lead guitar. John Paul Jones influence can in no way be denied – but then the influence of Led Zeppelin can hardly be denied in modern rock music as a whole – Grohl and Homme both acknowledging zeppelin as a key influence to their own bands. On the Vultures album Jones dabbles in everything from bass to mandolin, throwing in some keyboard solo’s in tracks such as ‘Mind Eraser, No Chaser’, maybe just to prove he can. The result of these three heavy-weight titans bringing their own musical influences, experience and power to the TCV table is a jaw-dropping result; a fresh sound that can’t exactly be summed up in a catchy by-line, or inferred through listing other bands. At best you could attempt to describe the sound as a QOTSA-meets- Radiohead-meets-Led Zeppelin-meets-Foo Fighters-meets-White Stripes kind of affair.
Perhaps one of the best tracks on the album to showcase the awesome power and drive, yet sheer obscurity of the music is the tempo-shifting, riff-based lyrically-trippy track ‘Elephants’, which seems to attempt to crunch every zeppelin riff ever recorded into an epic 7 minutes of musical magic. Other favourites include ‘New Fang’; the band’s first officially released single back in October ’09 (followed by the album in November) and the inescapably catchy ‘No-One Loves Me & Neither Do I’, the first track of the album, which introduces you to the loose recording style, obscure guitar sounds and lyrical eccentric style in a 5 minute blast of what is a genuinely unique sound.

The question must be asked though – with a sound so obscure, which seems to rest more than an ordinary amount on experimental recording styles and guitar-riffs you have to sort of familiarise yourself with before the song hits home, would the band have come out as such a whopping success without they’re previous credentials? I would say that the answer is somewhere between ‘Of course not’ and ‘not a chance.’ The album seems to ride the line between a cool, innovative, fresh sounding style and an unsuccessful attempt at trying to be ‘new’ through a slapdash recording and a loose control of the guitar strings. I will personally admit that if I had listened to the album without knowing whom it was that was gracing my ears with their musical genius, I might’ve regarded it as the latter, along with any other new-wave band gigging around Camden town on any given night.

However, the case remains that the band in question do carry with them the titles of three (or more) successful and influential bands, revered by fans worldwide, and this means that the threesome could have walked out of a studio in LA one sunny day having recorded their own version of John Cage’s 4 minutes 33 seconds and still made headlines. The album however, is not a rendition of any of John Cages ideas, and is in fact a whirlwind – a powerhouse of musical ideas and styles. Definitely an album to own as part of your definitive Rock collection, and definitely a band to watch in 2010. As good old rock and roll fades away, replaced by punk-pop, new-wave, electronica and so forth (Golden Silvers, a sort of Indie piece with a keyboard at centre is in no way a replacement for rock and roll, my friends) TCV are definitely a group to watch this year.