Villains

Editors’ Notes For all their black-jacket badassery, Queens of the Stone Age have always been defined less by their heaviness than their toy-like tightness, by the sense of rattling down the track at manic speed without ever going off the rails. Produced by pop guru Mark Ronson (“Uptown Funk,” Adele, Lady Gaga), the band’s seventh album bridges their sly, sinister hard rock with chilly synths and hints of disco, making for a sound both brittle and punishing. The imagery remains gritty, but the production—especially on standouts like “The Way You Used to Do” and “Head Like a Haunted House”—gives the music a surreal air, like a nightmare rendered as cartoon.