I'm not sure we should be giving any more publicity to the bizarre media phenomenon that is Sharon Osbourne, but I couldn't resist starting today with this quote from her about Josh Homme. Homme, it seems, had the temerity to criticise Ozzfest. In response, Osbourne told Blender, "I hope he gets syphilis and dies. I hope his dick fuckin' falls off so his mother can eat it." Nice image, thanks for that. It strikes me, though, that the ubiquity of Osbourne is something that Homme is obliquely railing against on "Era Vulgaris" (Latin for "Common Era"), the predictably excellent new Queens Of The Stone Age album. Track Three is called "I'm Designer", and features those choppy, robotic riffs which have become Homme's trademark. "The thing that's real for us is fortune and fame," he notes, "All the rest seems like work. It's just like diamonds - in shit." He then wolf whistles, perkily. Soon, the track mutates into a kind of lush, hazy psychedelic chorus, with Homme at his softest. It's a schizophrenic trick which the Queens repeat again and again on this dense, complicated album, one which reveals its treasures in a much more insidious way than previous Queens albums. I think parts of it may sound like Devo meets "Strawberry Fields"-era Beatles, especially "I'm Designer" and the fantastic "Battery Acid". But essentially, it's a refinement - a stabilising, maybe - of Homme's intimidating talent. There's a lot I like about the last Queens album, "Lullabies To Paralyze", but in contrast to the steely purpose of Homme's other records, it feels a bit shapeless, haphazard. "Era Vulgaris" is right back on point. There are no Nick Oliveri-shaped distractions this time round, and while a bunch of passing suspects apparently help out with backing vocals - Julian Casablancas, Billy Gibbons - the line-up feels stabler. Or as stable as a restless spirit like Homme could ever make his band, I guess. Anyway, it's all shadowy, gripping modal boogie, as you'd hope. Some things here - "Into The Hollow" and "Misfit Love" - fit stylistically right between "Rated R" and "Songs For The Deaf". One of the most immediate tunes is "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu", an old Desert Sessions song originally sung by Lanegan, here slowed down by Homme to a louche piano vamp that reeks of late-'70s Stones. The other is "3's & 7's", riding a cranked riff so reminiscent of Nirvana that our Reviews Ed referred to it the other day as the Queens'"Song 2". Homme's songwriting is never quite that straightforward, though, and "Era Vulgaris" is as dense, prickly and fastidious an album as he's ever made. By "River In The Road", the errant Lanegan appears to be back in the fold, lending his apocalyptic moan to a proggish sequel to "Song For The Dead". That June gig in London with the Queens and The White Stripes should be amazing. I once saw them play together in Bologna, and also witnessed Nick Oliveri sniffing Meg White's drum stool. But that's another story entirely. . .

Coming from the same creative team behind the first two Spider-Man movies -- headed by director Sam Raimi -- the big question hanging over part 3 is: what the hell went wrong? Spider-Man 3 seems to have been willed into existence by the combined efforts of marketing departments, merchandise divisions and third-party licencees. The result is soulless and witless, a sequel too far. Demurring to Netiquette, be warned there are spoilers ahead. The motor here is the precarious three-way relationship between Peter Parker (Tobey Maquire), Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and New York City. Peter has the annoying habit of dashing off to save NYC from all manner of pesky superbaddies the minute M-J comes round for a cup of tea and cuddle. Peter's former best pal is Harry Osborne (James Franco), who believes Spiderman killed his pa (at the end of the first movie, continuity buffs). Harry dons pa's Green Goblin disguise and sets out for revenge, planning to destroy Peter and M-J's relationship and steal her for himself before killing Peter. Meanwhile, a slimy cosmic symbiote inhabits Peter, amplifying his anger and badness, apparently turning him into a member of Panic! At The Disco in the process. Elsewhere, crook-on-the-lam Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church) gets zapped at the local particle research facility and becomes a creature made entirely of sand. Topher Grace plays an unscrupulous photographer with eyes on Peter's job at the Daily Bugle, and Bryce Dallas Howard looks fantastic as a shameless plot device to make Peter realise how much he rilly, rilly loves M-J. Theresa Russell turns up for, ooh, three minutes and acts everyone off screen. OK, so what's wrong here? Plenty. Frankly, I'm fatigued by comic book adaptations. The skies have been gridlocked with caped heroes flying hither and thither, speeding to save major American cities -- real and imagined -- from cackling hoardes of genetically mutated ne'er-do-wells. In the last few years, we've had movie versions of (deep breath) Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, V For Vendetta and Hellblazer. Soon come: FF2, Iron Man and fresh installments of the Batman, Hulk and Superman franchises. The multiplexes are at saturation point with four-colour freaks and weirdoes punching each other through buildings and saving hapless extras from death by taxi cabs hurled randomly across streets. The problem is that all these movies conform to roughly the same plot. To wit: saving city/planet/loved ones from evil person. At one point during Spider-Man 3, as a snarling newspaper boss rages at a mild, mannered cub employee who hides a secret identity as a superhero, I thought I'd slipped through the Fourth Wall and into a Superman film -- such is the woefully limited genetic pool on offer here that characters and storylines replicate themselves like pernicious rogue DNA. According to the remorseless, two-dimensional logic of the superhero genre -- where More Is Good -- it follows that one pitched battle between hero and villain must then be followed by an even bigger one. So it is that for Spider-Man 3, the film climaxes with a WWF-style smackdown between Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Sandman and Venom (that's the alien slime, folks). Do we need 4 baddies in a movie?, I whine. Why can't we just have Spider-Man facing down Green Goblin, thus resolving a narrative arc begun in the first film in a clean and satisfying way? Why clutter it with more supervillains? Because, say Marvel/Sony's mechandise divisions (in a voice I imagine to sound chillingly like the HAL computer in 2001), we can sell more action figures in Burger King! I slam my head repeatedly against the nearest wall and cry openly for all of our children, even those as yet unborn. Of course, I blame Sam Raimi. In fact, I blame Sam Raimi, Christopher Nolan, Bryan Singer, Ang Lee and a whole other bunch talented folks who've squandered their brilliant talents on making the superhero genre respectable these last few years. Damn you -- why can't you just go and originate your own movies! Or go and make a movie based on a comic book with zero awareness in the outside world -- like American Splendor or A History Of Violence. They were good movies, right..? There's nothing in Spider-Man 3 to suggest Sam Raimi directed it. It feels like a movie made by committee, driven by a financial imperative. A quick skim round Google tells me that the first movie took $807m in global ticket sales; the sequel took $783m. And that's without the revenue from DVD and ancillary rights. Who can blame Marvel and Sony from wanting to make even more money? They're businesses, after all! Making money is their job! Lots of money! Ah, but they set the bar pretty high by getting Raimi involved. If they'd given it to a journeyman hack like, say, Brett Ratner, then I wouldn't bat an eyelid if the film was a disaster -- in fact, I'd be disappointed it it wasn't -- there's nothing I like more than having my prejudices confirmed. But Raimi can do much better than this. He appears to have been totally emasculated by the financial needs of these two large megacorporations. Now, if only there was a superhero on hand to save Sam Raimi... Spider-Man 3 opens in the UK on May 4

I've just been reading through your comments again. Thanks for all of them: I really like it when Wild Mercury Sound starts to resemble a sort of forum, when we can swap tips and enthusiasms and also, of course, pick on Killers fans. Particularly taken with Lauren's eloquent post, not least because of the nice things she says about Uncut. "You are tripping if you think the Killers are more likely to make an impact on the hearts and minds of people than the Arctic Monkeys are," she writes in response to a post by Mitch. "Sorry, but yr way offbeam. Alex Turner is clearly a rare class of songwriter. Killers are just drab. Dude had to grow facial hair as a gimmick... that is only the first lame thing about them. PS: there are tons of splendid bands around at the moment, but they ain't going to come up and clobber you with their 'I am a classic band' hammer. you are obviously an Uncut reader... Pick a reviewer you trust and buy an album they recommend. you might surprise yourself..." Hopefully, this blog can provide that kind of service (Good to see Tanel picked up on the Linda Perhacs reissue, by the way; I've probably played that album as much as any other over the past couple of years). Right now, anyway, the new album by Colleen is playing, and I can't think of another record in my pile at the moment that wields the "'I am a classic band' hammer" more subtly. Colleen is, in fact, a Parisian woman called Cecile Schott, whose previous albums have generally fixated on highly intimate electronica, with sampled music boxes and a delicate, meticulously detailed atmosphere that's quite close to some of Bjork's "Vespertine". Her new album, "Les Ondes Silencieuses", sustains that mood, but uses different tools to achieve it. Essentially, it's chamber music, with Schott creating a kind of baroque ambience with a classical acoustic guitar, a clarinet, a spinet, a few ringing glasses and, most prominently, a viola da gamba. The last instrument has a fantastic woody sound, like a particularly reverberant cello, and it contributes to an atmosphere that's refined, meditative and genuinely lovely. Just the thing after a long day of meetings, I think. Try some: "Blue Sands" and "Sea Of Tranquility" are both playing at Colleen's Myspace.

It’s Sunday, and I’m at Wembley Arena to see Bob Dylan. Outside, the sun’s just starting to set on what without exaggeration you could call a glorious day. Inside, a packed an excited Arena, meanwhile, in stark and tumultuous contrast to the evening’s warm decline, storm clouds are gathering as Bob Dylan and his band roar towards the climax of tonight’s opening number, “Cat’s In The Well”, a turbulent gem from the much-derided Under The Red Sky. It’s a cantina romp on the album, turned here into something brooding, fraught and ominous, music for a world pinned to a wheel of pain, everything you can see and more about to go up in flames. “Cat’s in the well and grief is showing its face,” Dylan rasps. “The world’s been slaughtered and it’s such a bloody disgrace. . .Cat’s in the well and the leaves are starting to fall. . .goodnight, my love, may the Lord have mercy on us all.” It’s a stunning start to a sensational show that wholly lives up to the superlatives this most recent leg of the Never Ending Tour has already accumulated, the sense of foreboding evident here influencing everything that follows – from the jolting new arrangement of “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, through sulphuric versions of “When the Levee Breaks” and “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” to the sweet eternal poignancy of “When The Deal Goes Down”, the stark magnificence of “Blind Willie McTell” – which I’d never heard him play before - and the dream-like suspension of “Nettie Moore”. The prevailing mood of dark anticipation carries through into Monday’s show, Dylan’s sense of a world gone wrong rarely so keenly felt. It’s there in every beat of every song he sings, especially tonight in the hymns to life, love and liberty that make up what he plays from Modern Times – notably, an eerie, stalking “Ain’t Talking”, which is like watching the twilight at the world’s end through the withering trees in a graveyard where people you know are buried, and another smouldering run at “When The Levee Breaks”. Two much older songs about injustice and war tonight provide complementary highlights – a sublimely moving “Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” and the anti-war lament, “John Brown”, whose sombre sentiments remain chillingly apt over 40 years after it was written. For the four first numbers at both Wembley shows, it’s great to see Dylan fronting his amazing band on electric guitar. He cuts a truly fantastic dash up there, pulling his knock-kneed shapes, resplendent in black suit, wide-brimmed white hat with a matching Stratocaster. More then ever, he looks like God’s last gunslinger, going down outnumbered with both guns drawn. Breathtaking. London Wembley Arena Sunday, April 15 2007 1 Cat’s In The Well 2 It Ain’t Me Babe 3 Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues 4 It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) 5 When The Levee Breaks 6 Spirit On The Water 7 Highway 61 Revisited 8 When The Deal Goes Down 9 Rollin’ And Tumblin’ 10 Chimes Of Freedom 11 Blind Willie McTell 12 Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again 13 Nettie Moore 14 Summer Days 15 Like A Rolling Stone 16 Thunder On The Mountain 17 All Along The Watchtower London Wembley Arena Monday, April 16 2007 1 Cat’s In The Well 2 Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right 3 Watching The River Flow 4 It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) 5 When The Levee Breaks 6 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll 7 Rollin’ And Tumblin’ 8 Spirit On The Water 9 Highway 61 Revisited 10 John Brown 11 When The Deal Goes Down 12 Most Likley You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine) 13 Ain’t Talkin’ 14 Summer Days 15 Like A Rolling Stone 16 Thunder On The Mountain 17 All Along The Watchtower