Crooked? Perhaps. Fantastic? Hells yes.

For those of you who have already discovered Them Crooked Vultures and their recently released self-titled debut album: good work! You get an A+ and are excused from this reading assignment. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, please read on, as this will definitely be on the final exam.

Let's begin with a few simple questions, just to ease you in. Do you like listening to Queens of the Stone Age? Do you enjoy the music of the Foo Fighters and/or Nirvana? Are you a fan of Led Zeppelin? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Them Crooked Vultures might just be the next big band and album in your life. If not, check your pulse; you might be dead.

Them Crooked Vultures is the newest rock supergroup to hit the music scene, and the first to have a membership that really piqued my interest right off the bat. The recipe is perfect. Start with Josh Homme, the riff-tacular front man from Queens of the Stone Age, on lead vocals and guitar. Add in the ever-present Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, on the drums. Top it all off with classic rock legend John Paul Jones, letting his experience with Led Zeppelin shine through his masterful work on bass guitar, keyboard, and other assorted instruments. The result is an album that evokes equal parts modern hard rock and classic blues rock, and sticks with you long after you've hit the stop button.

But if these big names haven't convinced you of the band's worth, the music surely will. This stuff is deep with a capital D. Even now, months after downloading the self-titled debut, it still finds its way into my normal iPod rotation. This is primarily because the music seems to have infinite depth. Every time I listen, I find something new that I never heard before. Also, the albums structure is phenomenal. Many bands "fontload" their albums. In other words, they put their big hit songs in the first tracks of the album. This seems to be what Them Crooked Vultures attempted, but the result (at least for me) is something completely different. The first three tracks on the album definitely have the most widespread appeal, with tracks 2 & 3 ("Mind Eraser, No Chaser" and "New Fang") being the band's two singles released from the album (they were also the two songs played by the band during their recent performance on SNL). However, I found these three tracks to be mere introductions to the bands true power, with the following 5 tracks really taking center stage. Tracks 4 though 8 contain 25 minutes of pure rock bliss. Then, after a short interlude on track 9 ("Interlude with Ludes"), the band comes back in full force with three fairly experimental, but still thoroughly enjoyable songs, and ends it all with the entrancing, hypnotic "Spinning in Daffodils."

The band's greatest strength is its instrumentation. I could go into incredible detail here, but that isn't necessary. Instead, I will just cite a few prime examples: the drum-fill intro to "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I"; the guitar lead-in to "Elephants"; the tempo-climbing guitar solo in "Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up"; the power-dance melody of "Gunman"; the encapsulating falsetto in "Scumbag Blues"; and the list goes on. I truly can't oversell some of this stuff, because it simply must be heard.

The album is not without its problems, though they do little to detract from its overall appeal. First, the two lighter tracks on the album ("Interlude with Ludes" and "Spinning in Daffodils") simply don't stand up to the other songs. While interesting in their own rights, and successfully recreating their presumed drug-trip inspiration and message, I just couldn't get into them, and found myself hitting the next button whenever I came upon them. Second, with all the riff-tastic guitar lines and pounding drum fills, sometimes the vocals seem like more of an afterthought than a fully featured instrument. This is particularly apparent in two songs: "Elephants" and "Gunman." The former is forgiven simply because of its awesome instrumental intro (as mentioned earlier). However, the latter is hard to let slide. The underlying music to "Gunman" is this power-dance melody that immediately grabs the listener's attention. However, while Homme could have taken center stage on this track and delivered something truly fantastic, he settle for some a-melodic warbling during the verse and a truly out of place, almost operatic chorus. Perhaps the juxtaposition of the vocals and the instrumentation was intentional, and that's all well and good. But for me, it was too jarring, and prevented me from really enjoying what is an otherwise creative and foot-tap-inducing song.

That said, I fully endorse this band and their self-titled debut. If you are looking for an album to wake you up during your morning commute and keep you rocking all day long, Them Crooked Vultures is worth the download. And for those of you interested in getting a small taste before buying the whole farm, then follow along with me as I...

"Spot" the Tracks:

• Beginner: "New Fang"
• Intermediate: "Dead End Friends"
• Advanced: "Reptiles"
• Veteran: "Caligulalove"
• Expert: "Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up"