Them Crooked Vultures is a very heavy band. Not heavy as in heavy metal, heavy as in heavy hard rock.

Featuring three hard rock virtuosos in Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, from Foo Fighters, who switches from guitar back to drums, his spot in Nirvana, and Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age on guitar and lead vocals, the group exhibits a competency and energy rarely found in the genre today.

Their self-titled debut album consists of songs that are virtually all guitar riff driven over a furious and powerful rhythm section, adorned with dark, devilish, often impenetrable (sometimes penetrable) lyrics. With titles such as No One Loves Me & Neither Do I, Dead End Friends, Reptiles, Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up and Caligulove, it’s hard to imagine anything else.

The grinding, churning rhythm section not only shows how adept Grohl is back on the drums, but also gives a strong indication of Jones’ contribution to Zeppelin, which was often lost or overlooked during that band’s heyday.

Homme is fully capable of handling the vocal and lead guitar duties, although they did add a second guitarist, Alain Johannes, on their recent Saturday Night Live appearance, during which they played Mind Eraser, No Chaser, a tune that might be termed their most accessible or commercial to crossover audiences, although nothing on the album really falls entirely in that vein, and New Fang, the group’s first single, with its complicated guitar rhythm over which Homme sings a completely different melodic structure, something always to take note of.

The group hits a three-song streak in the middle of their the album that is really quite brilliant in Elephants, Scumbag Blues and Bandoliers. In fact, by the fifth track, Elephants, the listener starts to realize how much Homme can sound like Jim Morrison. And this likens the overall sound of the band to The Doors as a power trio, minus Ray Manzarek’s keyboards.

The character and quality of Homme’s voice along with the melodic intervals he chooses and dark lyrical content at times eerily recalls Morrison, in the best sense possible. Caligulove probably sounds the most like a Doors composition, something akin to Hello I Love You, only with a proficient musicianship The Doors could never touch. On Warsaw’s extended pyschedelic end section, one expects to hear the line “This is the best part of the trip.”

The band channels these and other influences and whether it’s intentional or not, it comes across as a new twist and interpretation of what has come before.

The rhythm section in a number of tunes, particularly Elephants, Reptiles, Warsaw, Gunman and Spinning In Daffodils sounds much like Zeppelin, which is only natural. On Scumbag Blues, Homme’s switch to falsetto in the verse can’t help but bring Jack Bruce of Cream to mind.

The band’s choruses play more like releases from the burning hard rock grooves of the verses than sing-song affairs, not catchy but inventive, always with an interesting construction. And the execution is stellar throughout.

The only slight misfire is on Interlude With Ludes, the one tempo changer in the set, which has its moments with an almost Middle Eastern rhythm but never quite settles into the type of groove or melodic structure on display for the rest of the album. Still, it may be a song that needs repeated listenings to fully appreciate, as many of the tracks require.

Although the band displays a wide range of ages in its members, they are all at the top of their game. Vultures are a tight, potent hard rock unit that harkens back to the golden age of the genre. Their mix of infectious, hard-driven rhythms, virtuoso playing on all ends and solid melodies along with an obvious impeccable pedigree makes Vultures today’s most vital example of a raw but tasteful, hard rocking experience that overwhelms the senses.