Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

It's quite surprising to think that the Foo's have had a career spanning over 10 years, and they don't look like slowing down anytime soon.
Most people are familiar with at least a handful of their songs, even though they might not even be able to name the band. Showing a cheek and humour in their videos has certainly helped them get lots of rotation, not just on the rock channels either. And of course, having a prominent frontman such as Dave Grohl rising from the ashes of Nirvana and constantly being touted as 'The nicest guy in the music business' can't have harmed the band either.

About to embark on a UK arena tour that sold out quicker than....well, it sold out damn quick anyway. Proof indeed that they have many more fans out there than one would first assume, but what about this new album? Is it any good?
In a word, yes.

Running at just over 50 minutes with it's 12 songs, I really wish other artists and bands would take a leaf out of The Foo's book when putting their respective albums out. What listeners and fans want (unless it's just me?!) is a nice collection of good songs, without the inclusion of the still ever present 'track skippers' and fillers that pad the running times out to stupid lengths. In my opinion, anything between 40 and 50 minutes is just about right, give or take. And let's not forget the old saying "Less is more". Who gives a shit if CDs can hold 80 odd minutes of music. And don't even get me started on double albums!
Anyway, back to the review:

There's a good mixture on here. Pounding tracks with screaming vocals in a typical Foo stylee such as "The Pretender", "Erase/Replace", the slow building "Let It Die", the fabulously titled "Cheer Up, Boys (Your make up is running)" and "But, Honestly".
We also get treated to some wonderful quieter moments with the likes of "Come Alive"; which begins as a gentle ballad and grows into a noisy, guitar driven anthemic tune. More of their gentle side is shown on tracks like "Stranger Things Have Happened"; which is driven along by a ticking metronome and has some really nice acoustic guitar thrown in, "Statues"; which is piano driven loveliness and then the album closer "Home". Piano....voice....strings....emotion....perfection. Just wonderful.
Add to the above a couple of typical Foo's sounding songs "Summers End", which is borderline MOR and "Long Road To Ruin"; sounding more and more like a likely single release, and the bizarrely included instrumental track "Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners", which sounds like some kind of acoustic guitar duel and you get a nicely compact, tight sounding, well produced album. In fact, I think the production on this album is particularly good and nicely refreshing, considering most 'rock' album producers and engineers tend to still think the best results are accomplished by turning all the knobs up to 11.

Conclusion : A great, great album.
For anybody who's relatively new to Foo Fighters, this would serve as an excellent album to introduce them to a very talented band. I'm not quite sure where I would place it amongst their previous releases. Certainly, it seems to be a little more ambitious and adventurous than anything else of theirs I've heard and I'd like to hope that they continue along this path.

Have a listen to some examples:

Statues
Let It Die
Come Alive
Home


Currently filed in my 'frequently played/pick me up' folder.