:: Track Listing

1. The Pretender
2. Let it Die
3. Erase/Replace
4. Long Road to Ruin
5. Come Alive
6. Stranger Things Have Happened
7. Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
8. Summer’s End
9. Ballad of the
Beaconsfield Miners
10. Statutes
11. But, Honestly
12. Home

:: Record Review

Foo Fighters

Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
(RCA; 2007)

Rating: 72%


Saying that Dave Grohl leads a charmed life is an understatement on the level of saying that Tiger Woods is good at golf. I really could give a shit that he was the drummer in Nirvana, that he's still the best skin pounder that Queens of the Stone Age ever had, or that David Letterman hand-picked the Foo Fighters to be the musical guest on his first show post-open heart surgery. All that matters is that Prince covered what's unquestionably the worst Foo Fighters single at the Superbowl halftime show. The man behind "Little Red Corvette" opted to play "Best of You" during the most-watched sporting event in America. Grohl found out about this while watching the game with all three members of Rush. I can't even begin to make that up. What's next for America's Most Affable Rockstar? Charlie Watts isn't going to live forever.

Even outside of bizarre karmic shit like that last anecdote, Dave's been more than a little lucky in the sense that his band might very well be the only late ’90s crossover act that's maintained its commercial viability to this day. They still make videos with the expectation that people will see them, every one of their albums has gone platinum, and modern rock radio programmers await new Foos singles with bated breath, which can hardly be said for, say, Live. Through myriad lineup alterations, a variety of producers, and an accidental (if not fatal) drummer overdose, not only did the Foo Fighters never go away, but they're on their 6th album! Take a bow Mr. Grohl; that's old school.

His band's sound has also changed very little over the years, subsisting entirely on full-bodied, melodic rock songs with anthemic choruses driven by drummer Taylor Hawkins' Stewart Copeland worship. No question that this approach has yielded some life affirmingly awesome radio singles over the years ("Everlong" indeed), but it also gives the haters plenty of ammo in the guise of the "same album every two years" gripe. The band tried to force variety on 2005's In Your Honor with a two-disc electric/acoustic format, and it served minimal purpose other than to showcase how the Foo Fighters (unlike Grohl's former squeeze) really have no business going unplugged. Though the electric disc rocked.

It's evident that Grohl & Co. fashioned Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace to be a "consolidation of strengths"-type effort, the honest single disc on the heels of their sprawling double that hopes to split the difference. They've even brought back Gil Norton to produce the thing, as he was behind the boards for The Colour and the Shape (1997), widely thought to be their finest (and best sounding) hour. In addition to being a symbolic gesture, the confluence of Norton and major label $$$ results in one of the warmest sounding Foo Fighters records in a long while. It's less self-consciously jagged than their last two, with a greater emphasis on Grohl's vocals in the mix and a modest sheen that's full-bodied without sounding overdone.

First single and lead off track "The Pretender" immediately gets it done right -- it's the best thing the Foos have put out since "Everlong," acting as the lightspeed, DNA-coil tight rocker with a jackhammer chorus. And I'm going to assume that "Long Road to Ruin" is the next single, as it showcases their glam-pop side like "Learn to Fly" and "Times Like These" before it, and it's easily as catchy as both. "The Pretender" and "Ruin" are the most obviously Foo FightersTM songs here, with the emo-dis "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make-Up is Running)" and "My Hero"-style pathos of "Erase/Replace" not far behind. Four good singles, easy.

But the remainder of Echoes is considerably more diffuse, engaging in levels of genre-hopping that might seem a little desperate were it not for the fact that most of the songs hold up. The acoustic guitars that dominated disc two of In Your Honor surface on roughly half of the songs, but excepting "Stranger Things Have Happened," they're usually utilized in the name of setting up a crushing electric counterpoint that's clichéd but effective ("Let it Die,""Come Alive"). "Stranger Things" might be a little too precious -- that really is the audible wind and tick of a metronome serving as the only percussion -- but it still manages to be a convincing slice of goth-folk.

The genre-experiments only get ugly when Grohl clutches too hard to the serious artiste mantle that doesn't suit him: You'll listen to the bluegrass instrumental twice; "Statutes" is a go-nowhere '70s AOR ballad that sounds strangely like Joe Walsh; and they didn't need to close out with a goopy piano torch song ("Home") when the peppy acoustic-then-ROCK pop of "But, Honestly" would've ended the set on a more viscerally exciting note. But I'm glad that the Foo Fighters felt the need to one-up Grohl's old employer Tom Petty because the Southern shuffle of "Summer's End" is awesome. It's a melodic jangle of a song that's as inviting as the "sweet Virginia countryside" it evokes, with a chorus that won't leave your head for months. Serious credit due to Gil Norton for milking the inevitable Duane Allman solo for maximum choogle.

And the Tom Petty comparison is apt, because even if very little in the Foo Fighters canon actually sounds like outtakes from Damn the Torpedos (1979) or (the amazing) Full Moon Fever (1989), Grohl and Petty share similar values. Give them an honest day's pay and they'll churn out reliable collections of mainstream rock that won't induce vomiting. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace pushes no envelopes but is nonetheless an enjoyable batch of expertly produced commercial rock songs with plenty of catchy bits. Just like most Foo Fighters albums. Sometimes it's okay to be the Everyman. David M. Goldstein :: 15 October 2007 |