As rumours swirl of a new album from Josh Homme’s alt-rockers, we look back on Queens of The Stone Age’s best ever riffs.

10 ‘3’s and 7’s’

‘3’s and 7’s’ starts off smelling a little like teen spirit, disarmingly jangly and radio-ready, before taking off into an interstellar chorus. The riff lightens the tone, but it’s a clever move, freeing up Homme to ramp up the theatrics and make one of their sharpest tracks yet.

9 ‘Everybody Knows That You’re Insane’

‘Lullabies to Paralyze’ got some stick for failing to live up to predecessor ‘Songs for the Deaf’, but this is just one track that fulfils the promise of the record’s title. Homme’s mercurial riffage is full of elegance and menace, giving the track’s four minutes a sense of grandiosity and odyssey lesser bands would reserv for conceptual double-albums.

8 ‘Sick, Sick, Sick’

“It’s just, like, one chord clanging incessantly like a satanic alarm clock, now and then mutating grotesquely but always returning to that thudding, ugly beast of a riff,” you cry? Yeah! Isn’t it great?

7 ‘Never Say Never’

It’s Homme’s Jonathan Richman drawl that makes this song tick, but the insistent radio-rock riff and criss-crossing harmonics are the secret weapon, interlacing so effortlessly they sound accidental.

6 ‘Monsters in the Parasol’

‘Monsters in the Parasol’ plays it like a boxer, hopping deftly from foot to foot, unleashing a furious jab every eighth beat but instantly regaining its poise. If you want to know what a knockout sounds like, fast-forward to the pounding flurry at 1.18.

5 ‘Better Living Through Chemistry’

Homme’s sinister riff here creeps up like a quiet storm before unleashing a cyclone in the chorus. It’s less ‘terrace anthem’ than ‘terrace being incinerated by maniacs before collapsing into rubble’, but you know what you get with these guys.

4 ‘My God is the Sun’

Twin guitars spiral and weave like display planes as ‘My God is the Sun’ begins, escalating in intensity throughout the track before Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen’s solos crash and burn spectacularly in the finale.

3 ‘Hangin’ Tree’

This hailstorm riff blisters through the track in jittery 5/4 time, a perfect example of how Homme blends the weirdest elements of pop and heavy rock to make something quite different from either, but instantly familiar.

2 ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’

Once more proving that three chords is more than enough to start a band – and perhaps two too many – narcotic anthem ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ sees Homme’s riff replicate the tetchy, 5am intensity of a pale-faced partygoer reaching out a trembling hand for the orange squash as the night winds down.

1 ‘No One Knows’

‘No One Knows’’ riff doesn’t know whether it’s about to have an orgasm or a panic attack, sputtering and stuttering with tetchy insistence before Homme lets rip . An obvious pick, but the classics always are.