REVIEWED: Wasting Light by Foo Fighters
The (largely) general consensus among many critics in regards to Foo Fighters' latest disc number seven, Wasting Light, is of that a return to their rockier root. This, of course, is taken into consideration how saturated (or lush, I don't know) their last two albums were (2005's In Your Honor and 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace), and that by taking a step back and into simpler terms, Dave Grohl and co have came up with something that many people regards it to successfully hitting all the right notes. And on that basis alone, we do kind of agree with the consensus. But scratch the surface and something else hits you smack right on the face.
The one problem with all the talk of Foo Fighters going back to basics is actually kind of misleading, largely for the fact that Wasting Light, after a three solid weeks of listen (yeah, I totally did that), doesn't sound that much different from their last two albums actually. Because, if lots of people were lead into believing that 2011's album is a walk down the memory lane to those days of early FF, then the same people are going to be hugely disappointed. 1995's debut for example had a lot of Kurt Cobain's flavor rubbed all over it - it is more grunge than the modern alternative sound of today's FF. In fact, track number four "White Limo" is a revisit of Dave Grohl's days of drumming for the Queens of the Stone Age, contributing to the fact that the whole going-back-to-basics business is related to something that is a lot more recent (Read: no further back than 2005 - or perhaps 2002, yes?).
And that brings us to another thing about FF - I personally believed that the last time they were actually a rock band is in 1997 with The Colour and the Shape. There is Nothing Left to Lose, though showing a more matured side of FF, also incidentally marked the death of Foo Fighters the rock band, and the birth of Foo Fighters the melodic guitar-based music band. It was, in the grand scale of things, the 'transition' album for FF before the transition comes into full circle in 2002 with One By One. Ever since from that point onwards, their evolution revolved around improving the 2002 sound (or something of that effect).
So how does the final product fare? Well for one, it certainly sounds a lot more urgent and raw than the last two albums combined. Well, for the first three to four songs that is. Then it starts to grow flaccid and progress comes to a painfully slow grind. The other thing that we realized about this album is that it is big with emotions and/or themes of emotions, with track number 10 "I Should Have Known" being the biggest highlight, and for which we are of the opinion that it is the strongest song of the entire album.
In their 16 or so years of existence, FF have achieved a lot to become one of America's greatest rock band in recent memory, moving from a garage-based one-man side-project into a grandiose, arena-sized rock royalty. The only difference being is of course when FF was only a small-time Dave Grohl's solo project, Foo Fighters was a lot of fun to listen to. Now, with the screams of millions of fans from all around the world filling in the background, shouting the band's name, the weariness from all that glam and glitter is starting to become very apparent, and it starts to wear off on the listener as well.
The (largely) general consensus among many critics in regards to Foo Fighters' latest disc number seven, Wasting Light, is of that a return to their rockier root. This, of course, is taken into consideration how saturated (or lush, I don't know) their last two albums were (2005's In Your Honor and 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace), and that by taking a step back and into simpler terms, Dave Grohl and co have came up with something that many people regards it to successfully hitting all the right notes. And on that basis alone, we do kind of agree with the consensus. But scratch the surface and something else hits you smack right on the face.
The one problem with all the talk of Foo Fighters going back to basics is actually kind of misleading, largely for the fact that Wasting Light, after a three solid weeks of listen (yeah, I totally did that), doesn't sound that much different from their last two albums actually. Because, if lots of people were lead into believing that 2011's album is a walk down the memory lane to those days of early FF, then the same people are going to be hugely disappointed. 1995's debut for example had a lot of Kurt Cobain's flavor rubbed all over it - it is more grunge than the modern alternative sound of today's FF. In fact, track number four "White Limo" is a revisit of Dave Grohl's days of drumming for the Queens of the Stone Age, contributing to the fact that the whole going-back-to-basics business is related to something that is a lot more recent (Read: no further back than 2005 - or perhaps 2002, yes?).
And that brings us to another thing about FF - I personally believed that the last time they were actually a rock band is in 1997 with The Colour and the Shape. There is Nothing Left to Lose, though showing a more matured side of FF, also incidentally marked the death of Foo Fighters the rock band, and the birth of Foo Fighters the melodic guitar-based music band. It was, in the grand scale of things, the 'transition' album for FF before the transition comes into full circle in 2002 with One By One. Ever since from that point onwards, their evolution revolved around improving the 2002 sound (or something of that effect).
So how does the final product fare? Well for one, it certainly sounds a lot more urgent and raw than the last two albums combined. Well, for the first three to four songs that is. Then it starts to grow flaccid and progress comes to a painfully slow grind. The other thing that we realized about this album is that it is big with emotions and/or themes of emotions, with track number 10 "I Should Have Known" being the biggest highlight, and for which we are of the opinion that it is the strongest song of the entire album.
In their 16 or so years of existence, FF have achieved a lot to become one of America's greatest rock band in recent memory, moving from a garage-based one-man side-project into a grandiose, arena-sized rock royalty. The only difference being is of course when FF was only a small-time Dave Grohl's solo project, Foo Fighters was a lot of fun to listen to. Now, with the screams of millions of fans from all around the world filling in the background, shouting the band's name, the weariness from all that glam and glitter is starting to become very apparent, and it starts to wear off on the listener as well.
Labels: foo fighters
posted by Hafeez at 6:51 AM
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