Spring brings a deluge of new releases as record companies hope to squeeze one last bit of cash from kids headed off on a summer of competing economic interests and a world where word-of-mouth dries up... or so goes the thinking. That has meant a wealth of new music for this eternal kid, most of it surprisingly good.

And then there is the new disc from Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze. It's not bad, but it's nowhere near the mindblowing ride offered by the band's last, Songs for the Deaf. The disc isn't suffering critically, (a 79 on Metacritic compared to an 89 for Songs), but it sure seems to have fallen off the cultural radar. Even an appearance last week on "Saturday Night Live" doesn't seem to have re-ignited the buzz. Perhaps the lack of a truly transcendent single like "No One Knows" has been enough to keep people from checking this out. Or, it might be that the second half of the disc is full of duds. Things coast along nicely for the first seven songs, but the rest is a turgid mess that offers few memorable moments.

Maybe those who feared that the allure of Josh Homme wouldn't be enough without the usual sidekick punch offered by Nick Oliveri were right. Oliveri, who played a freaky, tattooed Andy Richter to Homme's sweet-voiced, 6' 5" redheaded Conan O'Brien (to offer a tortured analogy) seems to have done more for the band than hold down the bottom end with his bass. This disc lacks the spark of old, and Homme would do well to worry less about his scuzz-rock side project, Eagles of Death Metal (though that is admittedly the more exciting of the two bands, currently, and is, I suppose, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in the preceding analogy) and more about his main meal ticket. Perhaps a reconciliation is in order. It's a surefire Rolling Stone cover no matter the music that results. Seriously, just do it.