Review: Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways
By Shem Krey, Contributor
[Roswell Records; 2014]
Rating: 5.5/10
Key Tracks: “Something From Nothing,” “Feast and The Famine”
Dave Grohl always seems to be working on his next big project. Works like the thrash metal side project Probot, the rock super group Them Crooked Vultures and most recently the film Sound City all have Grohl’s name on them. His list of associated acts adds to his credibility even further because it is studded with some of the greatest musicians of all time. David Bowie, Mick Fleetwood and Trent Reznor are just a few of the people who have asked Grohl to perform and record with them.
Grohl’s most consistent band is the Foo Fighters and their most recent release, Sonic Highways, is supposed to be the end result of Grohl combining his connections and his ambition. Together with the television network HBO, the Foo Fighters wanted to create a musical map of America by going to famous recording studios around the country, talking to their city’s local legends and recording tracks that capture the essence of their respective music scenes.
The album’s guest book includes the signatures of Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick who joined Foo Fighters in Chicago, Bad Brains in Washington D.C., Zac Brown in Nashville, Gary Clark Jr. in Austin, Joe Walsh in L.A., the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) in Seattle and producer Tony Visconti in New York. With such a diverse and well-known group of features, it’s disappointing to hear this release sounds just like another generic Foo Fighters release.
The guest artists don’t have much of a presence in any of the tracks. This is most obvious in the New Orleans track “In The Clear,” featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and with a second line influence that is minimalistic and doesn’t reflect the scene in any way.
The first song “Something From Nothing” features more Ronnie James Dio than the listed Rick Nielsen, due to the fact that Chris Shifflet and Pat Smear playing Dio’s “Holy Diver” guitar riff is more prevalent than any Cheap Trick influence. The album starts to become weak right at the beginning because the initial goals of creating a musical portraiture haven’t been met.
The usual Foo Fighters songwriting formula is also evident in all the tracks. It’s no secret that Grohl writes his lyrics after the instrumentals are finished, but in the case of Sonic Highways the process is tainted. The lyrics were taken from interviews Grohl did during the location visits on the HBO show.
Because the lyrics were written so long after the instrumentals were penned, the two song elements don’t work well as a cohesive unit. On top of that, the songs are stretched thin due to the struggle of condensing the thoughts of a city into a single song, resulting in nonsensical verses and repetitive riffs.
The HBO series “Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways” which accompanies this record is very interesting and another highlight for Grohl’s new ability as a documentary film maker; this record, as with the soundtrack to that show, isn’t anything special. Overall as an arena rock record it’s fine, and most of the tracks will sound great live and out of context. But when comparing the initial goals of creating an album that showcases the music scenes in America to the final result, the only reaction is disappointment.
