8/10 foo – kin good.
After nine studio albums and having won pretty much all the music awards that are worth winning, Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters could be forgiven for trading the foot pedals for foot slippers and slinking off for a quiet retirement somewhere hot.
Instead, they’ve opted to keep those pedals firmly on overdrive mode, delivering yet another barnstorming album packed full of beefy riffs, canny songwriting and shout-yourself-hoarse vocals. In an interview Grohl described Concrete and Gold as an album where “hard rock extremes and pop sensibilities collide”, which pretty much hits the nail on the head. Foo Fighters have always been popular with the masses, but what keeps them riveting are those throat-shredding moments when all hell breaks loose.
Consider opening maelstrom “T-Shirt” – an almost imperceptible few bars of quiet acoustic strumming before the mallet comes down. Just make sure your speakers aren’t turned up too high. From there the pace rarely drops off as the album gallops through the punky screech of “Run” and sultry groove of “Make it Right” before delivering the album’s knock out blow “La Dee Da”; a fuzz-bass whirlwind that sounds like Royal Blood squared, and from which all else on Concrete and Gold radiates.
Thematically the album considers the uncertain future of the United States, with the heated atmosphere of the 2016 elections and the presidency of Donald Trump cited as major influences by Grohl. It’s an effective backdrop for the kind of tunes where pissed off people (e.g., all the normal ones) can scream along to vent a bit of rage about how badly the current Commander in Chief is steering the ship. Superb, exhilarating stuff.
Dan Ashcroft
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