Rated R (Deluxe Edition)

With album number two, Queens of the Stone Age opened up their sound to include the psychedelic desert heat surrounding them. The heaviness still comes grinding out of “Quick and to the Pointless.” But the inclusion of Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan adds a bluesy soulfulness to the grooves and the fuzztones and expanded arrangements make for a band going far beyond the stoner rock roots of Kyuss. This 2010 “Deluxe Edition” includes a ton of bonus material. The live tracks from the 2000 Reading Festival prove what a knockout live band could pull off, as tracks such as “Ode to Clarissa” (a b-side also included here in its studio version), “Better Living Through Chemistry” and “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” never sounded more demanding. The b-sides and outtakes get pretty wild, too. Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never” and the Kinks’ “Who’ll Be The Next In Line” are not so much covers but reinventions. “You Can’t Quit Me, Baby” is the sound of the boogieing apocalypse coming to an iPod near you.