Foo Fighters Concrete and Gold- New Album of The Week

    After the promise of Run earlier this year the Foos have delivered with an excellent album that draws on some old school mojo mixed with a hit of metallic freak out. Most of the album is devoid of the more Alt rock elements that usually call back to Grohl’s time in Nirvana, replacing them with a double dose of Classic Rock inspiration and Metal attitude. The Foos have also decided to throw some vaguely political themes on a few songs, but they do those of us who find escapism in music a favor by keeping the political messages background to the music most of the time.

    The first track, T-Shirt, seems to illustrate that Grohl also would rather stick to just making music, stating “I just wanna sing love songs and pretend like nothing’s wrong…”. This track does a good job of prefacing one of those vaguely political tracks, Run, by letting us know Dave is only addressing these topics because he feels that he needs to. The track also build up musically to the beginning of Run, flowing together into Run’s metallic freakout of a first verse.

As I said back when I reviewed Run as a single, I love hearing Dave Grohl’s harsh vocals on the verses, especially when contrasted with the softer approach he takes when getting to the melodic chorus. Taylor Hawkins Dancehall and Drum n’ Bass inspired drumming on this track also adds a level of chaos and danceability that I have never heard on a Foo Fighters track before.

    The next track, Make It Right is solid featuring more of Hawkins drumming up front as well as a Jimmy Page like guitar riff and backing vocals by Justin Timberlake. Track 4, The Sky Is Neighborhood is one that I fully expect to wind up on Top 40 and Alt Rock stations, sounding like an all real instruments take on Imagine Dragons. Rather than the drum samples, computerized samples and copious amounts of studio reverb that Imagine Dragons use we have a somewhat dry mix full of acoustic drums and guitar riffing getting the same feel. Also Dave Grohl sounds much nastier and more powerful than Dan Reynolds’ polished vocals.

    The next track La Dee Da is my favorite track on this album featuring two of my favorite gimmicks in a rock song and one of my all time favorite vocalists. This track has powerful fuzz bass as the main driving element, powerful metal screams in a non metal song and backing vocals by Alison Mosshart; seriously if Jack White had a guest solo on this track it would be my favorite song of all time. Even though Mosshart’s vocals aren’t that high in the mix this whole track has the same kind of spastic rhythm that she is known for, likely because her and Grohl are singing the same lines and he decided to match her cadence rather her sing it straight. This is basically the second Run on this album, featuring a powerful sound and somewhat politically charged lyrics.

    Dirty Water is an okay Alt rock tune and Arrows is the most standard Foo Fighters song on this record. Happy Ever After (Zero Hour) is a trippy song that reminds me a bit of Across The Universe and has that distinct Classic Soft Rock sound. Speaking of The Beatles, the next track features Taylor Hawkins doing his best John Lennon impersonation on vocals and Paul McCartney guesting on drums. Sunday Rain rather intentionally sounds like a halfway point between The Beatles and Nirvana and does a good job of feeling nothing like a Foo Fighters song, largely because of not having Grohl sing on this track.

    The second to last track The Line reminds me of Walk and is a pretty solid Foo Fighters track. Closing out this album is the title track which Grohl described as sounding like a mix of Sabbath and Pink Floyd, and honestly that description is nearly perfect. The slow but punishing guitar on the first verse and chorus with Grohl’s creeping, almost spoken vocals certainly sounds like Black Sabbath mixed with Comfortably Numb. Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men adds a choir of haunting background vocals on the chorus that perfectly hammers this song home. This track is filthy and beautiful in all the right ways and closes out the album perfectly.

    Overall this is a pretty awesome album by the Foo Fighters, proving once again that they are second only to Jack White in the modern Rock god pantheon. The only real weakness of this album is they don’t have many songs that sound like the typical Foo Fighter’s sound, but I really like the aggro metallic style that they display on Run and La Dee Da, especially when contrasted against Sunday Rain and Happy Ever After. The dynamics and blending of numerous influences are what make this album so much fun to listen to, along with all of the crazy guest spots on this record. As we get closer to December I have started to make my year end Top 10 list, and something off of this album will definitely be on it.

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The Kills Ash & Ice: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday- Friday

    Going back to the collection of albums that Noah really likes, we’re today looking at the latest album by The Kills, Ash & Ice. For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Kills, they are a blues inspired indie rock duo featuring Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince. Rather than The White Stripes / Black Keys formula of drums and guitar they instead have only guitar and vocals, using a drum machine to fill out the rhythm section. The interplay of Mosshart’s vocals and Hince’s guitar playing is what makes this band a lot more than the sum of their parts.

    While The White Stripes always had a punk influence they never really played up the bad boy punk image all that much. Their music was devoid of profanity and generally were closer to nasty blues rock than anything. While The Kills don’t sound particularly punk rock, being way too slow and methodical, they do play up the menacing atmosphere and delinquent attitude of punk music. The image and attitude of punk without the sound is probably why they’re usually categorized as indie rockers. This slightly darker tone and image also bleeds over into the Jack White and Alison Mosshart supergroup The Dead Weather.

    Getting back to Ash & Ice, it may be their easiest album to listen too, especially if you come from a pop or mainstream rock background. Blood Pressures and No Wow are also pretty accessible, but this is the most streamlined and cleanly produced album they have ever done. The whole album is fantastic from start to finish, but the highlights are Doing It To Death, Hum For Your Buzz and Siberian Nights.

    Doing It To Death was the first single off of this album and it’s not hard to see why, this song has the crossover appeal to have worked on alternative stations, rock stations and maybe even pop stations. The way that Hince’s guitar builds and fades in time with the drum machine creates the perfect bed for Mosshart’s vocal delivery. Also props to the music video director for having the choreography evoke the feeling of the song perfectly.

    Hum For Your Buzz is one of my favorite moments on this album, containing nothing but Mosshart singing over a very basic blues guitar accompaniment. Obviously this is one of the softer moments on the record and features some of the best of Mosshart and Hince playing off of each other. I also want to hear more direct guitar solos after the tasteful blues solo Hince pulls off here.

    Lastly we have Siberian Nights, the track which absolutely drips in the sexual tension and energy that Mosshart is so good at conveying. While she always has an element of this in her delivery, this song makes it fairly explicit with lyrics full of double entendre and sexual references. The lyrics seem to go back and forth between seduction and hesitation, with Mosshart asking in the chorus why the target of her affection has no love for her. By the end of the song she turns from seduction to practically begging her target to help her through the Siberian Nights.

    While this album isn’t anything particularly special in regards to the rest of The Kills catalogue, it’s one of their only albums I can get all the way through. Most of their albums feature a dud or two, or have weird noise rock inspired breaks, but this one is clean all the way through. As a huge Dead Weather fan it’s cool to see how Alison manages to take over and own every track she’s on, regardless of what sort of band she’s working with.

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