This is what sexy sounds like. The Eagles of Death Metal, a side project of Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, stick to some loaded guns with the aptly titled Death By Sexy. Yes, to repeat, it is sexy.

It’s not so much death metal, but an eclectic fusion of hard rock, folk and exhilarating, promiscuous lyrics that make Death By Sexy such an undeniably wicked listen. One spin of the go-go happy track “Solid Gold” will make you, as singer Jesse Hughes screams, “sweat!” Other songs grab hold of the machismo-heavy riffs that made The Darkness a novelty, and put them in the middle of complex and hard-driving rhythms. It’s almost effortless: the laughter at the instrumental break of “Don’t Speak” plays off this balls-to-the-wall mentality.

Even a Rolling Stones influence is apparent in Death By Sexy. Hughes yelps like Mick Jagger circa 1970 on the canned-rock of “Eagles Goth.” And the simple blues rock of “I Like to Move in the Night” has Exile written all over it. But it’s not as if Homme and Hughes are trying to ape these influences; instead, it’s a smirking ode to good ol’ dirty rock. Forget death, this bedtime combination of sweat, dirty garage and sticky southern influence is nothing but a good time.

Grade: A-

— Tim Malcolm, Muse Staff