Queens of the Stone Age release their ninth studio album, Perfecth, on Friday 30 October, according to Official Charts and Billboard’s New Music Friday guide. The title represents imperfection and honesty, inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics by filling the cracks with gold.
The band’s last album, In Times New Roman…, from 2023, peaked at No. 2 on the Official Albums Chart, according to Official Charts, and the new record is positioned as a chance to go one better and secure a second chart-topping album. Billboard’s guide described the new album as turning down the amps, with searing riffs and punishing drums somewhat mellowed compared with the band’s earlier work.
A quieter, more reflective record
Official Charts described Perfecth as forged from fearlessness and composed of equal parts reflection and ferocity, with the Kintsugi idea running through it: something new and beautiful moulded through repair. That framing suggests a record less interested in sheer volume than in what survives after damage.
For a band long associated with desert-rock intensity, a mellower ninth album is a statement in itself. It follows a career in which each album has tested how far the band’s sound can stretch without losing its identity, and Perfecth appears to stretch it towards reflection rather than aggression.
A crowded New Music Friday
Perfecth arrives on one of the busiest New Music Fridays of the autumn, alongside albums from Dominic Fike, BigXthaPlug, Sampa the Great, Nickelback and The Snuts. In that company, a ninth album from a veteran rock band has to fight for playlist space, but Queens of the Stone Age’s chart history gives it a strong starting position.
Whether it reaches No. 1 will depend on first-week streaming and physical sales, but the album’s concept alone has already given it a talking point beyond the usual release-week coverage.
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