It’s amazing to think how far Dave Grohl has come – 17 years ago, Grohl was the long-haired, wide-eyed drummer for Nirvana. Now, he’s the bearded, seasoned frontman for Foo Fighters, the band he started when Nirvana came to a close. This year not only marks the 10th anniversary of the band’s landmark album, The Colour and the Shape, but also brings the release of Foo Fighters’ sixth studio album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.
During the 10-year span between Colour and Echoes, Foo Fighters has established itself as one of mainstream rock’s most consistent bands. Year after year, album after album, the Foos continue to drop hit singles, sell out arenas and remain on the pop culture radar – all while maintaining critical acclaim and tweaking their sound.
Echoes is a return to form of sorts for Foo Fighters. The album, which is the follow-up to 2005’s double-disc acoustic/electric In Your Honor, not only returns to a single-disc format, but also reunites the band with Colour’s producer, Gil Norton. And while Echoes doesn’t have any tracks with the potential to be ubiquitous singles such as “Monkey Wrench,” “My Hero” or “Everlong,” it still has its highlights.
After focusing on the acoustic balladry on Honor’s second side and last year’s live album Skin and Bones, Echoes’ first single, “The Pretender,” is almost a way for the band to say it can still rock. The song opens with acoustic finger picking and Grohl’s soft vocals – almost tricking you into thinking it’s a ballad – before Taylor Hawkins’ drums kick in. The song then adds an infectious guitar riff and builds until Grohl uses his signature near-scream delivery on the chorus. If you thought Foo Fighters had long forgotten how to turn on the distortion pedal, you were wrong.
Though “The Pretender” returns the Foos to rock, the acoustic side the band has championed in recent years still appears on Echoes; Grohl still has plenty of opportunities to display his softer side and his songwriting talents throughout. In fact, Echoes’ closest album relative is Honor, as both albums have an even split between heavier rock tracks and slower, more acoustic ones. It’s obvious Grohl loves keeping things simple (he’s managed to turn two of the band’s radio hits, “Everlong” and “Times Like These,” into even bigger hits thanks to simple acoustic re-workings), and on Echoes, he lets the full-bodied sound shine with “Let It Die,” “Stranger Things Have Happened” and “Summer’s End.”
Some songs, however, straddle the rock-acoustic line. “Statues,” probably the most Beatles-esque song Foo Fighters have produced to date, is a perfect example: The song starts with a guitar lick so classic, you’ll feel like you’ve heard it before – it cries emotion. “Statues” then becomes decidedly more Beatles, with a piano riff, snappy lyrics and backup harmonies.
Grohl’s lyrics have always had the great trait of appealing to the everyman – never too specific, almost always undeniably catchy. The song’s understated chorus, “We’re just ordinary people, you and me/ Time will turn us into statues, eventually” are the kind of lyrics anyone can relate to.
But the most interesting song on Echoes doesn’t involve Grohl’s lyrical ability at all. “Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners” is an instrumental guitar duet between Grohl and slap-guitarist Kaki King, and somehow it works – it’s the album’s innovative song, showing how the band manages to change a little bit with each new album.
The album-closer “Home” may be Grohl’s most poignant songwriting to date. Accompanied by only an acoustic piano, Grohl laments about life on the road: “Wish I were with you/ I couldn’t stay/ Every direction/ Leads me away.” Eventually, however, a string section and the full band join Grohl and the piano as he sings, perhaps more optimistically, “People I’ve loved/ I have no regrets/ Some I remember/ Some I forget/ Some of them living/ Some of them dead/ All I want is to be home.”
Grohl is no musical genius, and the Foos haven’t reinvented rock with Echoes, Patience, Silence & Grace – it’s not even the best Foo Fighters record – but the album is another enjoyable, interesting and consistent album. And while it may not go down in the record books as a classic, Echoes is worth a spin or two, at least from fans who miss rock music that combines bad-ass attitude with pop sensibility.
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