On “Sonic Highways,” Foo Fighters pull out the usual and reliable style in the way a machine in a factory puts together a clock.
Perhaps you’ve seen the headlines already. The new album, goes down the wrong road, a familiar road, a mediocre road, a road to nowhere, etc. At least it doesn’t, as Foo Fighters’ drummer Taylor Hawkins
Instead it sounds like complacency.
“It started with a spark / and burned into the dark” is a painful lyric to find on any album, let alone the first track of “Sonic Highways.” There’s little fire behind this album. Itap not that Dave Grohl doesn’t deliver his usual impassioned shout-singing or that guitar solos don’t reliably rip. The problem is there’s no passion or thought behind these tools. Foo Fighters pull out the usual and reliable style in the way a machine in a factory puts together a clock. Even if it sounds good, itap not exciting. Familiar Foo Fighters melodies are still great melodies. Dave Grohl has always had a knack for anthemic songwriting. And in the right mood, you might be inclined to slowly headbang or fistpump just like you’ve done with every Foo Fighters album in the past.
So, itap actually not that the music itself is bad. The real problem is that “Sonic Highways” doesn’t do what it was meant to do. The Foo Fighters’ in which admired records were made, interviewing the musicians. The songs on the record were each written and recorded in a different location, with contributions from those musicians. Itap a nice idea, but celebrating the musical diversity of America isn’t best done through one arena-rock band. You’re not going to hear much Preservation Hall Jazz Band in the New Orleans-inspired song “In The Clear,” for instance. Nashville and Zac Brown is barely audible on “Congregation.” In fact, you might not guess which song was written and recorded where without help. The thing thatap supposed to make this Foo Fighters album different and interesting is moot.
There’s no doubt the Foo Fighters had fun making this. There’s no way they couldn’t, really. The fact that itap not particularly fun to listen to, though, is a sign that these guys might be out of ideas and are just keeping occupied and entertained. Thatap hard to avoid with age, so if we can excuse that, we can at least appreciate that the Foo Fighters still sound great and still know how to melodically tap into that part of people that just wants to feel. And hey, at least they didn’t fart on our iTunes.
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Ashley Dean is an editor and designer for YourHub at the Denver Post and a regular contributor to Reverb.
