Era Vulgaris

Era Vulgaris is the band's fifth album, released by Interscope Records on 12 June 2007 and the last they made for that label. Josh Homme and Chris Goss produced it under the name The Fififf Teeners. It was recorded between July 2006 and April 2007 with, as the band put it, exactly zero input from the label. The idea came to Homme on his daily drives through Hollywood. He called the record "dark, hard, and electrical, sort of like a construction worker" and said "it's like dirt, clearly seen". The guitars leave behind the softer tones of the album before it for something harder and crunchier, and there is more electronic colour in it. Homme sings and plays guitar, Troy Van Leeuwen plays guitar and Joey Castillo drums. Julian Casablancas of the Strokes plays synth guitar and sings on "Sick, Sick, Sick", Mark Lanegan sings harmony on "River in the Road", and Trent Reznor sings backing vocals on the title track, which appears on the British edition. "Sick, Sick, Sick" came out in May and "3's & 7's" in early June. The album entered the Billboard 200 at fourteen on 52,000 copies in its first week, and reached seven in Britain, five in Canada and four in Australia, going gold in Canada and the United Kingdom. Metacritic scored it 75, AllMusic four stars out of five and Pitchfork 6.2; Rolling Stone gave it four stars, its first for the band since the debut, calling the record intricately crafted and ruthlessly efficient. The eleven songs listed here are the original edition's.