Sonic Highways- Foo Fighters
by: Kitty White
Foo Fighters released their eighth studio album Sonic
Highways today to mixed reviews. The album features eight songs recorded in
eight different US cities accompanied by an HBO mini series that focuses on the
musical background of each of the cities and then ends each episode with the
song from the featured city with a local legend playing along with Foo Fighters
on the song. The guest artists feature some heavy names such as Rick Nielsen,
Joe Walsh, Gary Clark Jr., and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie. Even with a
star-studded cast of characters on the album, the album has fallen short of
many people's expectations. It doesn’t feel right giving an overall broad opinion on this
album seeing as each song really has it’s own background to it and therefore
get’s a little messy. The project itself was quite ambitious so let’s start off
giving credit where credit is due for Foo Fighters taking on such a task of a
nationwide album. Sometimes first flights are a little rocky but there’s a few
shining moments that still make it worthy of praise.
The album starts out with the Chicago track “Something From
Nothing.” This song, the official first single off the album, is a rocker.
Definitely gave me high hopes for the rest of the album. Although Sonic
Highways only features eight songs each of is of substantial length that works
out great for the opening track. There’s a funky keyboard interlude and
Hawkins’ drumming is on point, as it is throughout most of the album, which
helps carry you through some of the less powerful tracks. The pace keeps up
right into the DC song ‘The Feast and The Famine’ which definitely shows it’s
hardcore roots through the lyrics and quick and to the point chorus. Things
mellow down a bit though when we get to Nashville for ‘Congregation.’ This song
did nothing for me at first. The best part was Zac Brown’s guest guitar work
near the end that picked up the pace and gave the song some life. The one issue
with this song in particular and kind of becomes a recurring theme with the
entire album, is that the corresponding HBO episode is kind of needed to really
fully appreciate the story behind the song. On one hand, I love learning the
history and backgrounds of songs so that’s really neat, on the other hand one would hope that these songs would be able to stand on their own. Although
‘Congregation’ had to grow on me the Austin song ‘What Did I Do?/God as My
Witness’ still doesn’t do much of anything for me past the ‘What Did I Do’ part
despite Gary Clark Jr.’s solo. If the song was half the length it is I feel it
would fare much better.
Things move along when the LA track featuring Joe Walsh
comes in. ‘Outside’ immediately established itself as one of the top tracks of
the album, thanks to Nate Mendel’s rolling bass line throughout the song. The
song sounds like the desert highway drive that it would take to get out to the
studio Rancho De La Luna where the track was recorded. I’m just dying for
summer to come back around to blast this song with the windows down, driving
down the highway in the middle of the night. The climax of ‘Outside’ let’s way
to the New Orleans song ‘In The Clear’ which features amazing horns from The
Preservation Hall Jazz Band. They bring the song to another level musically.
Other than the chorus, this song would be another favorite of mine. ‘In The
Clear’ is great musically and I feel like it also showcases Grohl’s growth as a
lyricist over the past twenty years the best on this album.
Ben Gibbard’s influence on the Seattle track ‘Subterranean’
is evident and I immediately got a Foo Fighters meets Death Cab For Cutie vibe
from it. This song brings you back to
the laid back days of ‘There Is Nothing Left to Lose.’ Boring to some,
heartfelt to others. I feel it falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Which could be said for the entire album. It’s by no means
terrible, but Foo can and have done better. ‘Subterranean’ gives a nice fade
into ‘I Am A River’ the final song of the album, recorded in NYC with Tony
Visconti. The longest song of the album, it fits in nicely as the closer. The
beginning of the song is beautiful and gives a sort of hopefulness for what is
to come after this album. Although like ‘In The Clear’ the chorus doesn’t seem
to fit well with the rest of the song that is so complex and big. Despite that
this song has a lot of potential when it comes to the live show, i.e. it would
be a great sing a long finale next to the likes of ‘Best of You’ and ‘Everlong.’ In ‘I Am A River’ Dave sings ‘There is a
reason/ I found a reason beneath a subway floor” which I think fits well with
the overall idea behind Sonic Highways. Music has a reason, it has a
background, and it’s all connected through people, thoughts, and feelings.
This album is something bigger than just Foo Fighters and
that works against them at times with it almost not fitting into being part of
their catalog. It’s a little haphazard but Sonic Highways still has some
great ideas behind it although not all of them come to the surface. Maybe
more time should have been spent to have the album side of the project be
realized to it’s full potential. There’s a lot of hypothetical questions I
could continue to ask but the fact of the matter is that this is a good album.
Does it immediately ring out as a collection of hits? No. Does it have
potential to grow on the listener once paired with the television series and
given a few listens? Definitely. Despite any shortcomings this album has, I
think the idea of the multi-city, multi-scene album will be revisited by other
artists and Foo Fighters have done something amazing by even tackling this
project that many people were uneasy about since the beginning.
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