Queens Of The Stone Age release Perfecth on 30 October via Matador, led by the single “Insignificant Other“.
Queens Of The Stone Age have announced their ninth album. Perfecth arrives on 30 October through Matador Records, and “Insignificant Other” is out now with a lyric video. It follows 2023’s In Times New Roman….
The date is later than the band themselves had suggested. A teaser video put out earlier this month pointed at 30 September.
“Insignificant Other” is a loose, organ-heavy groove that the label describes as the record’s centrepiece. It is the second of only two takes.
“It’s a song about distance,” Josh Homme said. “About how someone can be your entire world only to simply vanish. And about the strange vertigo of being on the receiving end of that.”
Homme broke the word deliberately, on the grounds that the original has never been accurate.
“Nothing in this world is perfect, but everything seems to be ‘perfecth,'” he explained. “And that title is funny when you’re in a group, but it ain’t so funny when you’re alone.”
The band have framed the record around kintsugi, the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery with gold so that the repair is visible rather than hidden. Its nine songs deal with different forms of love, family, friends, and people significant and otherwise.
“Every song sounds like it’s from a different world,” Homme said. “And that’s on purpose, because it’s trying to stitch together all these emotions revolving around love, lust, foolishness, and the sort of wisdom that comes as a gift from all that.”
Homme produced with bassist Michael Shuman, from sessions tracked in various cities between New Orleans and Los Angeles across the three years since the last record. The lineup is Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore.
One track has a history. “Sunday” is a re-recording of a song from Post Pop Depression, the 2016 album Homme made with Iggy Pop, which also featured Fertita and Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys. “Mono” shifts its mix from mono to stereo across its length, moving from something narrow into orchestral scale.
Perfecth Tracklist:
- “It’s Only Love”
- “Insignificant Other”
- “Where The Goth Girls At?”
- “Mono”
- “From The Cliff”
- “Sunday”
- “Easy Street”
- “Phantom Limb”
- “Run Away From The Mob”
Perfecth comes on CD and standard black vinyl generally, on clear vinyl through independent retailers, and as a limited deluxe gatefold sold only through the band’s and Matador’s own stores. That edition includes handwritten lyrics, stationery and stamps in a custom envelope, plus a piece of art held in a pocket in the sleeve.
The announcement came with a clip directed by Chapman Baehler in which a dog named Big Chongus looks for a home, joined by pets belonging to the band, Ruby and Max Homme, Pumpkin and Isabella Puppolini Van Leeuwen, and Reesa Shuman.
“Easy Street“, featuring country singer Nikki Lane, preceded this single and was the band’s first new music since 2023. It was debuted live during last year’s Catacombs run and arrived with a video directed by Tony Wolski and Christopher Gruse from an idea of Homme‘s.
Homme has also been busy elsewhere, guesting on Shania Twain‘s “Faded Blue Jeans” from her album Little Miss Twain, released in July, and on Mastodon‘s “Snakes For Dinner“.
Queens Of The Stone Age spent the summer supporting System Of A Down across Europe and the UK, including two nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. They rejoin Foo Fighters on their North American stadium run from 15 September, and have announced autumn headline dates in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. Further 2027 shows are due to be confirmed shortly.
