Album review: Queens Of The Stone Age, ...Like Clockwork (Matador)

Since 2007's Era Vulgaris, Josh Homme has undergone both life-threatening medical emergency and life-affirming parenthood, band break-up and superstar collaboration, all of which made recording this follow-up rather fraught – hence the ironic title.

Yet it's his band's most musically diverse effort yet, ranging from the lumbering low-end creep of “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” to the closing piano ballad in which he resignedly accepts that “it's all downhill from here”. In between are strutting QOTSA robot-riffs (“If I Had A Tail”), careering chug-rockers (“My God Is The Sun”), a waltz (“Kalopsia”) and even the celebrity singalong “Fairweather Friends”, featuring Mark Lanegan, Trent Reznor and, bizarrely, Elton John.

Download: If I Had A Tail; My God Is The Sun; Kalopsia; Like Clockwork