Dave Grohl crash-lands Foo Fighters LP

Originally published in The Lamron (9/27/07)

It could be a premature generalization or an unfortunate reality, but it just seems that the Foo Fighters’ best days are behind them. Post-grunge rock stud Dave Grohl really hasn’t allowed the band to explore too much musical territory besides their signature galloping, steady rock stomp, and while they do what they do very well, it’s clearly beginning to get a bit stale in this post-1990s air. Listeners were afraid to admit it on the band’s 2005 double-album, In Your Honor, but now, with their just-released sixth LP, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, the prospect has just become unavoidable.

It’s not that a lot of the songs aren’t on the same level of quality as Foo Fighters’ prime in the mid-to-late nineties. It’s just that they don’t offer anything new. As Grohl sings on the opening track, “The Pretender,” “It’s never-ending, never-ending/same old story.” “The Pretender” is infectious enough to make the listener forget that it was better when it was called “All My Life” back in 2002. But then there’s “But Honestly,” which slowly builds through a series of pretty acoustic chords before exploding into an inexcusable rendition of “Monkey Wrench” Part II.

Of course, trying new things has never really been a fascination of Grohl, who has stubbornly stuck to formula since his debut back in 1995, a Grohl solo album in nearly every way except name. Streamlined alternative rock was all the rage back then, and so the band was successful – not undeservingly so, either. But at some point, a band has to realize when they are approaching the territory of self-parody, and Foo Fighters now find themselves somewhere past that point.

Grohl seems to, for the most part, make no conscious effort to allow one song to stand out from another, and it really is a chore to remember which is which. Sometimes track-to-track familiarity can be a good thing on a record that relies on a seamless, segueing theme, like The Who’s Quadrophenia, for instance. It’s a bad thing when the record is a dozen alt-rock nuggets that were recorded a dozen years too late.

Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace is frontloaded in the most literal sense of the word: it’s pretty dismissible after the very first track. The only other moment that makes you cock your head in pleasant surprise is “Summer’s End,” a country romp with Black Crowes-inspired guitar layers and even a cameo by a fiddle just to make sure the southern rock stereotype is complete.

Other than that, though, there’s not much to salvage. “Long Road to Ruin” sounds like a castaway from the Buzz Ballads compilation. “The Ballad of the Beaconsfield” is a failed attempt at an acoustic guitar interlude ala Jimmy Page’s “Bron-Yr-Aur” or Duane Allman’s “Little Martha.” The heavy tracks are too blunt and stupid, the acoustic ballads too brittle; Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace is just one, big whiff.