Queens are in tune with spirits of rock past, future

The best hard rock isn’t about obvious sledgehammer riffs and lyrics of eeevil. It surprises and challenges you, attacking eardrums not just with volume but with ideas, emotion, excitement.

Queens of the Stone Age make music like that, one of a handful of major local acts (such as the Mars Volta and System of a Down) that make Los Angeles a capital of forward-thinking noise. Monday, in the first of two nights at the Wiltern LG, Queens of the Stone Age devoted the first part of its set to the hardest rock in its repertoire, roaring like early Black Sabbath but with a post-punk, post-grunge intensity and flavor.

The core quartet of the band, led by singer-guitarist Josh Homme, stood wailing, pounding and grinding to strange melodies. But while Queens could soar through the madness of “Monsters in the Parasol,” it could also slow things down without surrendering any weight or darkness. “I Never Came” was intense in its own way, while the measured “Everybody Knows That You Are Insane” was wild and vaguely threatening.

Homme was a typically ironic, wiseguy host between songs. When his guitar broke down at one point, he joked to the crowd: “It’s not you, it’s me.” Then came more inspired volume, going back as far as “You Can’t Quit Me Baby,” from the band’s 1998 debut, when Homme was still mapping out the sound of his new band.

It was a sound constructed Monday with thick bass lines and a martial beat, as Homme brought the tune to a soaring musical passage and a super-heavy jam session, stepping ever further into the hard-rock future.