Queens Of The Stone Age, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme, of Queens of the Stone Age, learnt to play with their first heavy-rock band, Kyuss, in the Californian desert, so such volume and excess are second nature. And then there's the third vocalist, Mark Lanegan, formerly of Screaming Trees, whose presence demonstrates the high calibre of guest that the Queens effortlessly attract - Nirvana's Dave Grohl postponed a Foo Fighters album to drum with them last year. You'd go a long way to find a British rock band so finely honed, and a long way to hear another US one so comfortable with what at times sounds like jerky New Wave and at others like angular post-punk, but turned up to 11 and aimed at the charts. Homme has said: "The last thing I want to see is a bunch of hot, sweaty boys slamming at our shows", and the feminising, even androgynising, of hard rock begun by Nirvana continues here, with just one boy slam-dancing mildly in spare space, and no macho excess from boys or girls.