Another obvious highlight is the first single, "Little Sister," which is almost as radio friendly as Songs for the Deaf's perfect "No One Knows." It would be safe to predict movie placement and radio overkill for the fun little rocker with the sing-along chorus. Soon after "Little Sister" closes out the first half of the disk, though, the going gets bland. "I Never Came" stands as the kind of near-pop song that makes Queens a still-cool band balanced right on the edge of the mainstream acceptance, "Skin on Skin" just makes for unpleasant, tedious listening.

Intriguingly distorted vocals don't manage to save "Someone's in the Wolf" from its arty pretensions. At over seven minutes long, the song devolves into Halloween sound effects and musical noodling that ultimately prove tiresome. From there, most of the remainder of the disc is skip-it filler. The only exceptions are the groovy "You Got a Killer Scene There, Man," with it's almost impossible to hear guest vocals, and the mellow "Long, Slow Goodbye."

The UK version of the album (NME.com is streaming the entire UK release on their site) has a couple songs that we won't be seeing on the US release, and that's an absolute shame. The first song, "Like a Drug," is elevated from one of the Desert Sessions discs and sounds like a song recorded in the late 50's or early 60's; the cover of ZZ Top's "Precious and Grace" is an intense, earthquake of a song. With Billy Gibbons and Mark Lanegan exchanging vocals, this one would have been the perfect bookend to the opener. The US release is poorer for the absence.

Lullabies could have been great, but its second half is too self-indulgent and the overall disc doesn't present the same kind of step forward that came when the band went from the self-titled album to Rated R to Songs for the Deaf. Lullabies is an album with some great moments that doesn't quite live up to the expectations.

But those moments of greatness still act as a compelling reason to buy the thing.

Check out the live performances in the Sessions@AOL archive.