Review Summary: An unforgettable and beautifully haunting live album
“As a young boy, I never considered the art of dying. That was just something we didn’t talk about.” - Josh Homme on Live From Austin City Limits TV, 2025.
The Catacombs of Paris are arguably the most famous ossuaries in the world. Dating back to the late 18th century, when Paris ran out of burial space and exhumed the bones of the poor and forgotten to place them in abandoned mines beneath the city, the Catacombs hold the remains of six million people – some perhaps dating back a millennia. The weight of history, bundled up and arranged to honor the dead, is undeniable in these places wherever they exist, even to the least introspective visitors. They demand a meditation of death and by extension the fact that the visitor is still living and able to hold these thoughts.
While it’s safe to say that Queens of the Stone Age’s frontman and driving creative force Josh Homme, by his own admission, didn’t think much of death in his youth, he’s certainly thinking of it now. Between a nightmare-inducing knee surgery that left him bedridden for months more than a decade ago and beating cancer, to the loss of close friends like Mark Lanegan and Anthony Bourdain in recent years, death had moved from the abstract to the concrete.
On an artistic level, Homme has said he’d been struggling with how to transition into a “third act” as an artist before
Alive in the Catacombs. While he hasn’t expanded on what exactly he meant by that, at 52, it’s not beyond the pale that this means solidifying a legacy while still growing musically. But where is there to go for a band as storied and respected as Queens, or a musician as influential as Homme? The answer for Homme was found underground.
Queens have been trying to record in the Catacombs for years. Unsurprisingly given the significance of the Catacombs, the city kept denying their requests. As time went on, Homme said he learned that perhaps it wasn’t what they were asking, but how they were asking it. They changed their request to include an offer to adjust how the band would approach the release. Recorded in 2024, and released as a video and audio album in June 2025, it also marks the first time musicians have legally played in the crypts.
The result is a gorgeously stripped down mostly acoustic experience, driven by Homme’s legendary vocals, violin and cello, xylophone, keyboard and acoustic guitars. The production is deliciously warm and strikingly organic. You can hear the saliva pop in Homme’s mouth as he inhales, the scuffle of shoes sliding over gritty stone and the natural echo and reverb as the music reflects from thousands of osseous angles. And the selected song themselves are largely deeper cuts from
Lullabies to Paralyze onwards, making them feel more intimate.
It’s also a minor miracle that this EP was even recorded. The recording came right as Homme fell ill and had to cancel their 2024 tour. He was running a nearly 106°F fever while recording and had to rest in the Catacombs between takes.
This all makes for an inimitable and tortured performance that works brilliantly amid waves of now-smooth, now-chaotic instrumentation. The sounds of water dripping over the bones of the ancient dead graces tracks like
Villains of Circumstance as it takes its time building to a swelling, cathartic crescendo. The psychedelic synth and bass grooves of
Suture Up Your Future hit differently with all the atmosphere preceding it, and the album closer
I Never Came feels downright euphoric with its driving acoustic guitar. After such a pensive album, the final track feels like, if not a reconciliation, than an acceptance of all that had come before, and where both Homme and the band are going next.
It also lead to the strongest release that Queens has produced in more than a decade. It’s little wonder to me that this spawned an international tour and separate follow-up shows at historic U.S. theaters. It’s not entirely clear what comes next for Queens, but Homme has said
Alive in the Catacombs has reinvigorated the band creatively. After repeated listenings, I’d agree with that assessment. It’s proof positive that Queens of the Stone Age are still alive and kicking after all.
