Joshua Homme’s height—6 feet, 5 inches—is a big reason for the sweat-breaking pace of “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now,” the opening song of a new album by his rock band Queens of the Stone Age.

“That’s the tempo I walk. That’s my stride length,” says the singer and guitarist, who was moving down a sidewalk when the tune took shape in his mind.

Movement is the message behind the band’s seventh album, “Villains,” which encourages listeners to live with urgency and gives them something to dance to in the process. The heavy rock of Queens of the Stone Age, abbreviated QOTSA and formed by Mr. Homme 20 years ago in the aftermath of grunge, has always had a groove to it. But to push itself forward, the band tightened the beat and intensified the swing of its new music.

Dancing is the “the steam valve for joy, and I love being a part of that,” says Mr. Homme, whose music has also inspired mosh pits and headbanging. His band recorded “Villains” with Mark Ronson, the producer whose song “Uptown Funk” had singer Bruno Mars dancing, along with countless wedding parties and proms.

From Billboard charts to festival stages, rock ’n’ roll is largely missing in action as hip-hop, especially, defines pop culture. Comment-section critics online are divided over “Villains” (out on Friday Aug. 25), with some partisans of QOTSA’s most muscular work suggesting that the band has surrendered some ground. For Mr. Homme, making danceable songs isn’t a concession to the market forces of pop; it’s a natural step for a band that has always stacked its songs with melodic hooks and an arch sense of humor.