Echoes,Silence,Patience and Grace

Hello all,

Just listened to the new foo fighters album Echoes,Silence,Patience and Grace and thought I would share some of my initial impressions. As I’ve only given a couple of listen’s and will probably give an update after I’ve given it more of a spin.

First of all I must say I was expected a lot from this release as the Foo Fighters got back with Gil Norton who was their previous producer from their 1997 recording ‘The colour and the shape’, which was my favourite Foo album. They’ve recently released a 10 yr anniversary edition and I must say that all songs still stand the test of time remarkably well. Anyway as Tre has previously pointed out the Foo’s will never be able to make a better album than that and therefore this album should be judged on it’s own merits.

The best description of this album would best be summed up as ‘acoustic/rock!’ The reason for the exclamation mark is due to the fact that a the start tracks on this album start sounding really acoustic and then explode into rock later on.

Now for a little description of some tracks

1. The Pretender: I’m sure most of you have heard this first single multiple times, but I just can’t get enough of this song. Starts out acoustically slow with Dave nearly whispering the initial lines and then bang in come the drums and then this track rocks hard for another 4.30 min. On a side note I can’t help but draw parallels between this opening track and the one on the album ‘One by One’. The self-titled song on this release was first released as a single way before the album came out and it had such an epic sounding rock song that I was expected great things. Unfortunately the rest of the album was a bit of a sleeper and had too many bland songs mixed between some pretty good ones. Anyway I digress. This track has it all, awesome riffs, catchy lyrics and even a break down in the middle. I would have to say this is definitely my favourite track off the album.

2. Let it Die: Again starts off slow acoustically and takes quite a bit longer to rip into its stride than ‘The pretender’ but once it does this track brings back memories of the slow burning songs found on ‘The Colour And The Shape’. A great song and I’m sure it will grow on me.

3. Erase Replace: Starts out well and keeps the rock vibe throughout the song. Easy to get into as the main chorus is repeated numerously and will probably stick in my head after a while.

4. Long road to ruin: Surprisingly no acoustic start on this one, which is best described as having a bit of a pop rock sound. Good but doesn’t really have much depth to it.

5. Come Alive: Back to acoustic. Gentle patter of drums and rather slow lyrics until the 3 min mark. After this it actually picks when the lyrics get more repetitive and when Dave throws in some screaming. Actually pretty good song by the end.

6. Stranger Things Have Happened: The most acoustic track yet, no drums just Dave and the guitar. Chorus is rather nice. Unfortunately brings back memories of the bonus album release with ‘In your honour’, if that’s your thing then I guess you’ll like this one.

7. Cheer Up Boys (Your Makeup is Running): Ahh back to a good start.  No acoustic, just rock. A little generic as the lyrics and chorus isn’t anything special. Based on the title was actually expecting a song deriding the emo bands out there but seems like it has nothing to do with that.

8. Summers End: Rather catchy and the title is rather appropriate as it has rather an upbeat sound. It’s a relaxing song and could grow on me after a few quite listens while kicking back and drinking beers.

9. The Ballad Of The Beaconsfield: No lyrics just guitar, but all Australian’s will know the whole story behind this anyway. Best described as a ditty.

10. Statues: Should have been put on their acoustic ‘In your honour’ album. Slow, boring and doesn’t go anywhere. I would have to say at this point the whole album for me unfortunately goes downhill. No Rock = boring shit

11. But honestly:  Title sums it up. Honestly enough with the acoustic shit I’m getting bored of it. Better than the last track but that’s only because it finally rocks out at the end near the 3min mark, but it’s a little too late with only 1 min to go.

12. Home: If they carried on the momentum from the last track and amped up on this track they could have really had something special to finish with. While it’s rather of a nice song it just doesn’t have enough grunt and balls to really finish this album on a high note. Interestingly it does have piano in it, which is probably a first for the foo’s and maybe a sign of things to come.

13. Once And For All (Bonus Track): Not too bad actually and would have been much better placed between tracks 10 and 11 to break up the boredom. Since it’s a bonus track it might have originally been left of the album, which makes me wonder what else didn’t make the cut.

Well, quite a lengthy post as per usual but here as some of my final thoughts. This review might come across a bit negative but as I’ve mentioned earlier it’s only my initial impressions. No matter how hard I try I can’t help but make comparison this with their previous albums and therefore my standards are a bit high.

I’ve now listened to the album again on my mp3 player at work while writing this review and have had to tone down the volume quite a bit. Maybe playing this album through a good stereo and cranking it up would give a bit more life to some of these songs and would bring out the rock arena vibe that Foo’s are renowned for. As Tre has mentioned their last album ‘In Your Honour’ really benefited from being blasted out at ridiculous volumes to really get the most from it. I think if all the boring acoustic songs were replaced with catchy rock tracks like from  ‘In Your Honour’ this album really could have been something great.
My initial conclusion is that ‘Echoes,Silence,Patience and Grace’ is better than ‘One By One’, and after a few listens maybe equal with  ‘There Is Nothing Left To Lose’, but doesn’t come close to matching ‘The Colour And The Shape’ and even ‘In Your Honour’.
Feel free to give your comments, opinions, views or even if you just want to talk about discuss all things Foo (And no I don’t mean Christian aka: Fu).