Saturday, September 29, 2007
A+E, Music, Reviews

Foo Fighters

“Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace” (RCA)

Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters CREDIT: Paul Butterfield/Getty Images

FOO FIGHTERS Thursday, Oct. 4 The Tabernacle $38.50 404-249-6400 www.livenation.com

Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl comes off as such a naturally likable well-adjusted guy that it’s difficult to imagine him ever being in a particularly bad mood. He seems so balanced and suited for his role as the leader of a very loud hard rock band that when his voice cracks in desperation as it does so beautifully in “But, Honestly” or when it lingers quietly over the piano notes of the album’s closing ballad, “Home,” it’s almost hard to accept the emotional truth as something real. You anticipate a nod and a wink, a quick, gentle assurance that he’s putting us on, that there’s a funny video waiting to dispel the serious, even dire, tone. But, clearly, there isn’t.

The Foo Fighters’ self-titled first album, which was essentially Grohl’s solo recordings, balanced Grohl’s natural uplifting pop melodies with the inevitable lyrical subtexts that subtly addressed the fact that his former band leader killed himself. Grohl expresses his pain and moves on. It’s why he has survived. His natural talents mask and deliver the truth at hand and transform it into new energy.

This sixth release from the band doesn’t explore new ground. It sounds like a Foo Fighters album, without the severe electric/acoustic divide of their 2005 double album, “In Your Honor.” Tempos go up in “The Pretender,” “Cheer Up, Boys,” “Long Road to Ruin” and down—“Stranger Things Have Happened,” “Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners” with acoustic guitar virtuoso Kaki King, weighting slightly more towards introspection as the years pile on. THREE STARS—Rob O’Connor