Ever since Josh Homme kicked Nick Oliveri out of Queens of the Stone Age, it feels like it's taken Homme forever to find his own way. Queens' last album, Lullabies to Paralyze, felt terribly uneven and just never found its footing. Former Failure and A Perfect Circle bassist Troy Van Leeuwen and former Danzig drummer Joey Castillio inherited the unenviable task of trying to replace irreplaceable musicians like Oliveri and Dave Grohl. Even Mark Lanegan of former Screaming Trees fame has seemingly disappeared from putting his stamp on the Queens' brand that he so excellently did from time to time on their last three records. But just when things couldn't look bleaker for Homme, he goes and creates Eva Vulgaris, one of the best records of his career.

Era Vulgaris is Homme's baby, more so than any other Queens of the Stone Age record yet; that's probably why he left the self-titled track that featured Trent Reznor off the final cut.

Every song has Homme's seal of approval and each one is excellent in it's own way. First single "Sick, Sick, Sick" is probably the weakest track on the record, but those verses that Homme spits out ferociously are to die for. Homme shows that his razor sharp humor is still in tact with the brutally funny "I'm Designer" and "Turnin' On the Screw" even has a sly wink to the movie Silence of the Lambs if you listen real close. Homme turns the volume down low for "Into the Hollow," probably the all around best track here with Homme showing off that wicked falsetto and "Make It Wit Chu" is the most slinky, sleazy and sexy cut to come into the Queens' catalog yet (yet another Desert Sessions song that has improved under the Queens' moniker like "Hanging Tree" did on Songs For the Deaf). Homme had me worried there for a while that he wouldn't be able to pull himself out of his self-imposed nose-dive but Era Vulgaris has quickly changed my opinion of that. Era Vulgaris will certainly go down as one of the best Rock records of 2007.