I Bet You’ve Never Heard This … #4

    Audio: Listen to this article.

Welcome to the fourth installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease.

On with the show.

I woke up with Black Sabbath’s War Pigs in my head. So, I did what any father worth his salt would do, I introduced my 12 year old daughter to the Black Sabbath catalog on the drive to school this morning. I heard a couple, “Dad this is weird” and “Do you seriously like this one dad?” comments, but it was a blast. It even segued from Black Sabbath’s Changes to the duet between Ozzy and his daughter Kelly singing Changes together (Tidal), of which my daughter approved.

After drop-off, I thought about another heavy rock album that I love and one that seems to have been forgotten by almost everyone. I played it the whole way home, and continued playing it in my listening room after I arrived. I thought to myself, this has to be one of those albums that I Bet You’ve Never Heard.

Band - Them Crooked Vultures

Album - Them Crooked Vultures

I’m usually not a fan of supergroups because there’s nothing to buy into or get behind. There’s no community of fans who’ve supported the band from its early years or a body of work over which the band has grown or at least experimented. A supergroup is essentially an all-star team upon which high expectations are placed and almost never met or exceeded.

Them Crooked Vultures is one supergroup that I took a chance on fifteen years ago and I’m happy that I did. I really like the band’s only album, and much of the music put out before and after, by its members. Them Crooked Vultures consists of bassist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), and guitarist / vocalist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss).

The album Them Crooked Vultures isn’t an audiophile standard, never will be, and won’t be released on 180 gram vinyl spritzed with unicorn tears anytime soon. It’s a heavy rock album that sounds dirty, distorted, and compressed. I can’t get enough of it and hope members of the Audiophile Style community can get into the vibe as well. I also understand that, like all art, Them Crooked Vultures isn’t for everyone. An album made to please everyone will please no one. Let’s dig into the music.

The opening track, No One Loves Me & Neither Do I, is an absolute banger. The track sounds like three guys putting their musical histories and musical mastery into five minutes of current hard rock and roll. The drum into just oozes Dave Grohl, while shades of Zeppelin and Queens of The Stone Age can be heard throughout, but without falling into the trap of sampling or covering what we’ve all known and loved previously.

The track Elephants is of a similar vein, with a guitar into capable of giving one goosebumps. Again, don’t fall into the “it’s compressed to hell, so I can’t like it” camp. I encourage everyone to set their audiophile cards down for an hour and turn up the volume. Elephants is a meandering, nearly seven minute track, full of original music that could’ve came out in the 1970s or the 2020s. This is far from the Greta Van Fleet flattering Zeppelin imitation because of the band’s influence, and all about three guys letting their creative flags fly.

Scumbag Blues is a tight track that sounds like this supergroup has been together for decades. Taking it to another level, John Paul Jones throws his classic clavinet into this one, here and there, in a similar way as he did in Trampled Underfoot, but also in a completely original fashion that feels like this is where he would’ve gone if John Bonham wa still alive and Zeppelin was still firing on all cylinders. Josh Homme’s guitar leads throughout Scumbag Blues are blistering yet lush at the same time. He plays like he’s the leader of Them Crooked Vultures, and the other guys are there to support him. I just love it, much more so than anything he has done with Queens of The Stone Age or Eagles of Death Metal.

Spinning in Daffodils, Mind Eraser, No Chaser, Caligulove, and Gunman are other tracks I could listen to all day, but this music demands high volume and I’m not sure my retired neighbors are on the same page as I am. I like to give them a taste of great music like Them Crooked Vultures, but not a seven course meal. Maybe I’ll wait until summer when the windows are closed and the air conditioning is on, to let this entire album really rip a concert levels. For now, I’ll enjoy the spring air through the open windows, knowing that I at least introduced this album to both the Audiophile Style community and those who live within 100 yards of my listening room.

Let it rip if you can, you’ll enjoy it.

Them Crooked Vultures by Them Crooked Vultures is available to stream and purchase from the following places. Enjoy.

Tidal | Apple Music | Amazon Music | Qobuz

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