This must be the week of self-titled albums or something. Anyway, this takes us back to the very beginning of the QOTSA story, in which Josh Homme rose from the ashes of his former band, Kyuss, to start a whole new band. Well, "band" may be a little strong a word, since the only two musicians performing in more than a guest capacity are Homme and his Kyuss drummer Alfredo Hernandez. So I guess "whole" and "new" should be struck from that sentence as well. The desert stoner rock scene isn't exactly my area of expertise!
As far as QOTSA albums go, this one is probably the most loose and raw, not to say that the other albums are tightly created masterworks of slick production work. In fact most people either love or hate the pseduo-lo-fi approach most of the albums take. While the songs here aren't too drastically different from the material that would encompass their "breakthrough" albums a few years down the road, it's decidedly less commercial and more devil-may-care in structure.
Future albums all sport different lineups. Hernandez would depart after this album, but other former Kyuss members were ready to step in, most notably Nick Oliveri, who would co-write most of the next two albums with Homme before having a dramatic falling out. Members of related bands like Masters of Reality (Dave Catching) would also pop in from time to time.
For some reason this album was out of print for awhile, then came back into circulation with three new tracks, formerly only available through split EP's with Kyuss and Beaver (and probably not the easiest things to find on their own). By dumb luck I saw it at the library and absorbed it into my music collective.
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