Rated R, the 2000 sophomore album from Queens of the Stone Age, was the moment QOTSA stopped being the Kyuss guys' new band and started becoming the heaving, spitting, strutting monster we know today. The band started out opening track "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" by chanting, "Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol" a bunch of times. They then spent the ensuing 11 tracks doing everything they could to simulate every effect of every one of those drugs, all through the lens of bleary crunch-rock.

Rated R hits the decade mark this year (yes, you are old), and in celebration Interscope/UMe will reissue the album on August 3 (August 2 in the UK) as an expanded double CD.

The first of the two discs includes the original album, and the second finds room for six B-sides ("Ode to Clarissa", "You're So Vague", a live version of "Monsters in the Parasol", a new version of old song "Born to Hula", and covers of Romeo Void's "Never Say Never" and the Kinks' "Who'll Be the Next in Line") and a recording of the band's set at the 2000 Reading Festival, including nine unreleased songs.

In further QOTSA news, frontman Josh Homme's Rekords Rekords imprint has a new partnership with Dangerbird. The first record released from the two labels will be QOTSA buddyAlain Johannes' debut solo album Spark, a full-length tribute to his late wife, Natasha Shneider of the band Eleven. It's due August 31. Future releases include new material from Eagles of Death Metal and a box set from the Desert Sessions, Homme's all-star collaboration project.

Also, Them Crooked Vultures, Homme's supergroup with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones, will perform a benefit show at Brixton O2 Academy in London on July 5. The benefit is for Eagles of Death Metal bassist Brian O'Connor, who has been diagnosed with cancer. -pitchfork.com