Queens Of The Stone Age has never had trouble holding attention. That’s down to more than the riffs — it’s the band’s whole disposition, an eagerness to poke at the dark, the sexual, the surreal and the absurd without flinching. That combination of menace and charm is on full display on the band’s ninth album, Perfecth, due Oct. 30, 2026, via Matador Records.
The band shared the album’s centerpiece today in the form of new single “Insignificant Other.” Recorded in just two takes, the second of which made the cut, the track finds the quintet playing loose, unpolished and locked into each other in real time.
“It’s a song about distance,” Joshua Homme says. “About how someone can be your entire world only to simply vanish. And about the strange vertigo of being on the receiving end of that.”
The announcement arrives alongside a Chapman Baehler-directed video starring a dog named Big Chongus as a stand-in for the concept of “perfecth.” Big Chongus is joined onscreen by fellow dogs Ruby Homme, Max Homme, Pumpkin Van Leeuwen, Isabella Puppolini (Izzy) Van Leeuwen and Reesa Shuman, with the clip tracking whether he ever finds his perfect home.
Homme produced Perfecth alongside bandmate Michael Shuman. The album will be released on CD and standard black vinyl everywhere, on clear vinyl through indie retailers, and as a limited deluxe gatefold LP — complete with handwritten lyrics, stationery, faux “stamps” tucked inside a custom envelope, and an original piece of art housed in its own pocket — sold exclusively through the QOTSA and Matador webstores.
The album takes its cue from kintsugi, the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery with gold, which treats the repaired object as more beautiful for having been broken. That idea runs through Perfecth from top to bottom. Built from the evolving chemistry between Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore, its nine songs trace different shapes of love — for family, for friends, for people who matter and people who don’t — and the way those loves can both wreck you and put you back together.
Tracked across sessions from New Orleans to Los Angeles, the record ranges from fearless to unsettling, tender to strange. Homme describes the record’s patchwork feel as intentional: “Every song sounds like it’s from a different world. And that’s on purpose, because it’s trying to stitch together all these emotions revolving around love, lust, foolishness, and the sort of wisdom that comes as a gift from all that.”
The title itself comes from Homme‘s decision that the word “perfect” never told the truth, since true perfection doesn’t exist. So he broke the word apart and rebuilt it as “perfecth” — a spelling he felt suited the concept better.
“Nothing in this world is perfect, but everything seems to be ‘perfecth,’” he explains. “And that title is funny when you’re in a group, but it ain’t so funny when you’re alone.”
The new album follows a busy stretch for the band. Queens Of The Stone Age recently dropped “Easy Street,” featuring Nikki Lane, a track first played live during last year’s Catacombs tour and the band’s first new song since 2023’s In Times New Roman…. Homme has also kept busy outside the band, contributing to Shania Twain‘s single “Faded Blue Jeans” and adding guest vocals to Mastodon‘s “Snakes For Dinner.”
Queens Of The Stone Age picks back up its North American stadium run with Foo Fighters on Sept. 15, 2026, and has also lined up a fall headline tour across Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. 2027 headline dates are expected in the coming weeks; fans can sign up here for updates.
Perfecth is available to pre-order here.
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