Deep into the new Queens of the Stone Age album, Josh Homme blithely declares, “I blow my load over the status quo.” Missions statements don’t come cockier than that. But Homme can get away with it because the status quo he’s referring to could easily be his own band. Since launching Queens of the Stone Age from the ashes of the almighty Kyuss in 1998, Homme has treated hard rock and metal as soluble materials; his band’s music is mercurial, its membership highly fluid.

By QOTSA's unconventional standards, a six-year layoff between albums doesn’t even feel like an unusually long hiatus, but more like the natural amount of time it takes for a new incarnation of this ever-shifting band to settle into place. Of course, Homme was never far from the headlines in the interim: He’s done everything from form a new band with a member of Led Zeppelin to produce an underrated Arctic Monkeys record to survive a near-death experience. Along the way, the Queens have shed long-time members (Joey Castillo, whose departure was announced partway through the ...Like Clockwork sessions; he appears on four tracks) and reacquainted themselves with some old friends: Songs For the Deaf-era sticksman Dave Grohl, go-to growler Mark Lanegan, and, most surprisingly, Nick Oliveri, who was ousted from the band in 2004 (and in the ensuing years, narrowly avoided jail time for domestic violence, drugs, and firearm-related offences). All the while, Homme lined up a guest list for ...Like Clockwork*--* including Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears, Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, U.N.K.L.E.'s James Lavelle, and even Sir Elton John-- that threatened to make the band’s previous revolving-door records seem grossly under-populated.

But if all that suggests a return to the scatterbrained lunacy of the band’s early-2000s releases-- and the band’s exodus from Interscope to Matador would seemingly encourage a left-field foray-- ...Like Clockwork presents another curveball__.__ Queens of the Stone Age’s first album for an indie since their debut is actually more polished and melodically focused than anything they ever released on a major__;__ you’d be hard pressed to classify 80 per cent of it as hard rock. But ...Like Clockwork simply foregrounds an aspect that’s been lingering in the Queens’ music since the beginning: beneath all that volcanic riffage, Homme has always been a sucker for a pretty pop song.

Queens have flashed their softer side before-- see: Rated R’s “In the Fade”, or Era Vulgaris’ “Make It Witchu”-- but there’s always been a self-consciousness about their slow jams, like someone not unsubtly dimming the lights and pretending to stretch their arm to sidle up closer to their date. ...Like Clockwork, however, is more committed in its intent to invest the Queens with extra grandeur and grace, and all of the aforementioned guests are essentially accomplices in Homme’s regal aspirations. (In other words, you’ll need liner notes to figure out most of the cameos). And don’t expect any party-crashing intrusions like “Quick and to the Pointless” from Oliveri; his duties don’t extend beyond backing vocals on a few tracks, as if his return to the group is on a probationary basis.

Fittingly for a band that’s spent the past few years retooling itself, it takes some time for Queens to shake off the cobwebs and get back to full strength: The leaden, one-note trudge of “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” makes for a rather listless re-introduction, "I Sat By the Ocean" doesn't fully deliver on the seedy promise of its "Telegram Sam" strut, while “The Vampyre of Time and Memory” strains too hard in its attempt at an early-70s John Lennon piano ballad. But like Jack White (with whom Homme occasionally shares custody of keyboardist Dean Fertita), Homme knows how to reinvigorate well-worn classic-rock influences by filtering them through his peculiar personality, and this is where ...Like Clockwork really comes alive: The monstrous groove of “If I Had a Tail” imagines how Zeppelin would have turned out if they had survived disco, while the moonage-daydreamy verses of “Kalopsia” are deviously upended by a Ziggy-wiggy, stardust-covered crunch. Bowie looms large on another album highlight: “Smooth Sailing”-- the song of load-blowing bravado-- assumes a Scary Monsters-style robo-funk bounce to bolster brilliantly nonsensical lines like, “I’ve got bruises and hickeys, stiches and scars/ Got my own theme music, plays wherever I are.”

Queens haven’t fully abandoned brawn and ballast (combustible lead single “My God Is the Sun” is up to their usual paint-stripping standards), but those qualities are now being harnessed for greater emotional impact, particularly on the penultimate “I Appear Missing”. It's a power ballad that perfectly bridges the divide between Queens’ hard and soft extremes, pitting Homme’s crestfallen melody against a sleeping giant of a chorus that proves to be as raging as anything in the band’s repertoire; when Homme shifts to falsetto for the song’s calamitous closing minute, it’s less a show of cheekiness than vulnerability. Homme initially chose his band name to subvert the machismo inherent to hard rock and__,__ more than any of their records before it, ...Like Clockwork feels like the ultimate realization of that mission. To invoke an old glam proverb, it kicks like a mule even when it dresses like a queen.