Queens Of The Stone Age will return next month with In Times New Roman…, their first new album since 2017’s Villains. If that seems like a long layoff, well, frontman Josh Homme has been dealing with some personal-life turmoil in the interim, and lead single “Emotion Sickness” seems to allude to some of it. “Baby don’t care for me/ Baby don’t care for me/ Had to let her go,” Homme sings on a groovy, harmonious chorus so classic-rock-radio-friendly that I daresay it choogles. As the verse section’s parade of awesomely violent blows gives way to another sweet refrain, he adds some more lyrics over that gravity-defying bassline: “People come and go on the breeze/ For a while life? Possibly/ I don’t really know.” He may be referencing the mess with his ex-wife; regardless of whether we’re hearing autobiography, “Emotion Sickness” is definitely my favorite Queens Of The Stone Age song in a long time.

In Times New Roman… appears to be a commentary on the excess and impending demise of our modern age. A pair of teaser videos also out today get the message across loud and clear. In one, an a man at a feast boasts to an unimpressed woman, “We got vomitoriums. We got orgy rooms. We got vomitoriums in our orgy rooms! We’re the Roman fuckin’ empire, baby. We’re not going anywhere!”

Check out the song and the promo clips below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Obscenery”
02 “Paper Machete”
03 “Negative Space”
04 “Time & Place”
05 “Made To Parade”
06 “Carnavoyeur”
07 “What The Peephole Say”
08 “Sicily”
09 “Emotion Sickness”
10 “Straight Jacket Fitting”

In Times New Roman… is out 6/16 on Matador.