I must admit, I wasn’t entirely optimistic when Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), announced they would be joining forces to create another ill-conceived supergroup.

However, much to my surprise, Them Crooked Vultures aren’t nearly as bad as I originally imagined, and their self-titled debut (available on November 17) mixes enough new with old to hold the short attention spans of stoners and aging hippies alike.

Led Zeppelin they are not, but “Scumbag Blues” attempts to capture some of their Heavy Metal majesty, as a versatile Jones rocks the keyboards like no one else could.

Homme channels Paul Westerberg on the Replacements inspired single “Mind Eraser, No Chaser”, whose dated garage band sound is a welcome addition to an album teaming with seething blues licks.

Nothing has yet to replace the image of two dapper leprechauns dancing a merry jig around a disproportionately sized Stonehenge replica lazily drawn up by Nigel Tufnel himself on a barroom napkin.

The problem with Spinal Tap is that although their rock mockumentary is as hilarious as it is iconic, the music that made up its soundtrack wasn’t, so the result is an albums worth of material that tows the fine line of mediocrity (perhaps intentionally so).

However, their third studio album Back from the Dead (15^th if you count all their fictional ones as well) and its nostalgic value alone should be worth the price of admission.

Ass men everywhere will come to appreciate the misogynistic “Big Bottom”, where a Jack Bruce possessed David St. Hubbins responds to Queen’s derriere inspired “Fat Bottom Girls” with dignified subtlety, “My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo/I’d like to sink her with my pink torpedo.”

You can thank me for sparing you all from the obvious “These go to 11” and combustible drummer jokes.