Founded and led by the six feet four, steely-eyed, tattooed greaser Josh Homme, the California band Queens of the Stone Age has been making menacing desert rock since the release of its début self-titled album, in 1998. Dave Grohl and Nick Oliveri are among its formidable roster of musicians. Homme’s multiple side projects over the years have included Eagles of Death Metal; the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones; and last year’s “Post Pop Depression,” with Iggy Pop, but he has yet to stop nurturing his brainchild. Queens of the Stone Age has become one of the most consistent rock-and-roll outfits of the last two decades, releasing new material every few years, and giving the genre’s purists reason to believe that, even if the music world is shifting at warp speed, the end needn’t be nigh.

That is why it came as somewhat of a surprise, earlier this year, when Homme announced that, for the group’s seventh studio album, “Villains,” Queens of the Stone Age had recruited the English pop d.j. Mark Ronson, the “Uptown Funk” architect and Adele and Amy Winehouse collaborator, as a producer. Homme met Ronson while the two were working together on the Lady Gaga album “Joanne,” and though he anticipated the backlash that hiring him would cause, Homme insisted that Ronson’s comprehensive musical knowledge and work ethic made him the right man for the job. (Ronson is also a longtime Queens of the Stone Age fan.) In the process of promoting their collaboration, Homme has traded in his leather jacket for a blazer and a bow tie. It all may seem a bit contrived, but the collaboration wasn’t designed to make fans feel comfortable: with “Villains,” Homme has said that he wanted Queens of the Stone Age to redefine its sound for a modern audience, “burn the effigies,” and rewrite expectations—even if it means putting the band’s reputation on the line.

It’s a worthy instinct, but the results on “Villains” are mixed. “The Way You Used to Do” is a belabored rockabilly tune posing as one of Ronson’s Top Forty hits. The opener, “Feet Don’t Fail Me,” sounds like a strained attempt to find common ground between the likes of Bruno Mars and Black Sabbath. But the studio alchemy between Ronson and Homme is more appealing on “The Evil Has Landed,” a song that showcases the band’s sublime guitar riffs and psychedelic percussion while also creating space for more traditional, dance-floor-ready pop elements. Rhythmically, Queens of the Stone Age has always been razor-sharp, but here, and with Ronson’s help, the band seems to have found a playful new groove. At its best, “Villains” is a welcome reminder that it is never too late to kill your idols.

Subscribe to The New Yorker’s “Listening Booth” playlist on Spotify.