Three down, six to go. Queens of the Stone Age released “Where The Goth Girls At?” on 23 September, the third single from their ninth studio album, Perfecth, which arrives on 30 October through Matador Records. With nine songs on the record, a third of it is now public, 37 days before release.
The new track follows “Insignificant Other” and “Easy Street”. Matador describes it as pairing raw, minimalist riffs with an explosive chorus, built out with string and horn arrangements. For a band whose catalogue has long been measured in riffs rather than orchestration, that is the detail worth noting.
What Where The Goth Girls At? Adds to the Run
The song is a look back rather than a look around. Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme drew on his youth in a Palm Desert suburb, and the track centres on teenage love and the urge to impress. In the release notes, Homme traces it to a specific memory: watching goth girls working a department store counter and giving makeovers to older shoppers, and deciding that was where he wanted to be.
NME describes it as a nostalgic single built on the same template Matador outlines, minimalist riffs into a big chorus, with the strings and horns doing the lifting. The structure is compact. The arrangement is the expansion.
Clash heard it differently, calling it “a bruising bass-led feast of rock debauchery”. The two readings are not necessarily in conflict: a bass-led song can still be built out with strings and horns, which is how a minimalist riff ends up sounding big.
Three Singles, Nine Songs, 30 October
The album itself has a clear framework. According to NME, Perfecth contains nine songs that deal with different forms of love, covering “family, friends, and others both significant and insignificant”. The last phrase doubles as a nod to “Insignificant Other”, one of the two earlier singles.
The title is a made-up word, and the explanation is part of the pitch. NME reports that it comes from the idea that “perfect” has never been an honest word, because nothing is perfect, so Homme coined a more fitting one. He has described the title as funny in a group and less funny alone. The central theme was also shaped by kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold, which is a fairly direct statement of how the record wants to treat damage.
Perfecth is the follow-up to In Times New Roman, the band’s 2023 album, which NME describes as acclaimed, so the gap between the two records is roughly three years. The singles-first rollout gives the album three separate moments on streaming and radio before the full record lands.
A Video Shot in a Deserted Power Plant
The music video brings back the team that made the “Easy Street” clip. Directors Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski staged it in a deserted power plant, where, as Matador puts it, the goth girls “command authority and self-assurance as they transform everyone they encounter into their ultimate form”. Copious amounts of black ink are involved.
NME calls the clip chaotic and bizarre. The ink does most of the work, spreading through the plant as the goth girls transform the people they meet, which turns the makeover memory at the centre of the song into the video’s plot.
The cast is a mix of performers and band members. Comedian Steve Agee, dancer and artist Scarlett Kapella and singer and actor Lou Lou Safran all appear, alongside the members of Queens of the Stone Age, and the video is available alongside the stream and download.
Two videos from the same directors in one campaign gives the album a visual through-line. The “Easy Street” and “Where The Goth Girls At?” clips now sit side by side as the album’s visual introduction, and both lean on the same mix of dark humour and stagecraft.
Two Stadium Support Slots Before Release
The weeks before release have put Queens of the Stone Age in front of very large crowds that were not necessarily there to see them. Clash notes that the band recently played Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London supporting System Of A Down, and says they came close to stealing the headline act’s thunder. NME reports that the band end their current stint supporting Foo Fighters on Saturday 26 September in Las Vegas, at Allegiant Stadium, two days after their Bourbon & Beyond set in Louisville, Kentucky.
For a band with a ninth album five weeks away, a stadium support slot is less about the length of the set than about who is watching. A crowd waiting for a headliner is one of the few places a long-running rock band can still reach listeners who have not followed every release, and the three singles give anyone curious afterwards something new to find. After Las Vegas, the Aftershock festival in Sacramento on 4 October is the last US date on Matador’s listing.
Perfecth by the Numbers
- 9 songs on Perfecth, the band’s 9th studio album
- 3 singles released: “Insignificant Other”, “Easy Street” and “Where The Goth Girls At?”
- 30 October release date, through Matador Records
- 2023: the year of the previous album, In Times New Roman
- 2005: the last time the band played Iceland, before Reykjavík on 24 October
- 16 shows across 7 countries between 24 September and 6 March
From Reykjavík to Mexico City
The first date after the US run is Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík on 24 October, which NME notes is the band’s first show in Iceland since 2005. Once the album is out, three Zepp dates in Japan follow from 25 to 28 November, in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, then the Star Theatre in Singapore on 2 December.
The Australian and New Zealand leg runs from 8 to 20 December, with arena shows including Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne and Afterpay Arena in Sydney, then Newcastle and Brisbane. It closes at Spark Arena in Auckland on 20 December, the last date of the year on Matador’s listing.
NME also reports that the band have announced a big show with Interpol in Mexico City next year. Matador’s listing places it at Estadio Ciudad de los Deportes on 6 March, with The Black Angels also on the bill. By then Perfecth will have been out for more than four months. Counted from Louisville to Mexico City, that is sixteen shows across seven countries in under six months.
What to Watch Before 30 October
Six of Perfecth’s nine songs are still unheard, and no further single has been announced. The album is available to pre-save and pre-order now through Matador.
The wait has not been empty. NME’s review of Alive in the Catacombs, the band’s concert documentary, called it moving and meditative, and the film sits in Matador’s store next to the Perfecth pre-order and earlier albums including Villains and …Like Clockwork.
For chart watchers, the dates line up neatly. The Reykjavík show falls six days before release, the Aftershock set almost four weeks before, and the band arrive at release week with three singles already in circulation. The Asian and Australian dates then keep the record on the road through December.
Long-running rock bands returning with new records has been one of the steadier stories on these pages this year. Our recent report on how Cursum Perficio closes a ten-year gap for Anthrax looked at another veteran act coming back with an album built for the long view. Queens of the Stone Age are moving faster, with three songs out and the full nine due in just over five weeks.
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