Eagles of Death Metal

A CD not to think about but to groove on and on and on. King of the stoned age Josh Homme, kickin' it behind the drum kit on this side project's side project, wouldn't have it any other way. If his band Queens of the Stone Age exists for the pothead too lazy to track down Blue Cheer, then Eagles of Death Metal, fronted by Jesse Hughes, exists for the pothead too embarrassed to pull out those old Kiss records. If half the riffs here aren't from Destroyer, it's only because they're from Love Gun; I've neither the time nor inclination for fact-checking. The rest come from Stealers Wheel and Exile-era Stones, the riffs from which sound better here than on any record Jon Spencer ever made. Every track sounds like the opener for a good record that goes bad midway through; in other words, the speed doesn't bog down in the sludge, and the catchy stuff stays caught. It's all you need on a warm spring day with the windows rolled down, the radio turned up, the flip-flops kicked off, and the pop-top popped. Don't bogart that shit, Homme. -- Robert Wilonsky