Foo Fighters
Concrete And Gold
Roswell/Sony/RCA
The latest offering from the Foo Fighters, produced by Greg Kurstin and their ninth studio album, is finally here. When a band of this calibre puts out a new album, there is always that fear that their sound might have gone stale, that the album was just not worth the wait and it’s gonna be crap. However, no need to fear that here because Concrete And Gold is pure rock and roll from start to finish.
The first track, T-Shirt starts off a bit slow and really makes you wonder what the rest of the album is going to be like… for the first 30 seconds at least until the end of the verse and then it hits you straight in the face.
Run is the next song and well, we all know that song well by now with yet another classic Fooeys music video. Make It Right is one of the best songs on the album. It’s just what you want from rock and roll and is just pure gold with lyrics like “lights go out and your head starts spinning” and just proves that you can’t keep a good Fooey down.
As much as I love the Foo Fighters and will always support them, a few of their albums have been hit or miss in the past with some excellent songs interspersed between well… some not quite heavy enough for what you know Grohl can pull off. Those albums leave you feeling a little disappointed. In fact, let’s be honest, on most of their albums, there are at least two or three songs that you just never go back to.
With Concrete And Gold though, there is a perfect mix of songs with a couple of them starting a little slow before blowing you out of the water with their strength. La Dee Da is one of those songs. It’s almost bluesy rock and immediately hits you in the face with “Jim Jones painting in a blue bedroom” and “Hate if I want to; Love who I like.” For those that understand the reference of course, just make sure you aren’t drinking cordial at the time…
The Fooeys do give you little breathers throughout the album. Dirty Water builds slowly, until towards end the guitars and drums just take over and you “feel an earthquake coming on”.
The weakest song on the album would have to be Happy Ever After (Zero Hour) but even this song has its place. After all, “there ain’t no superheroes now,” but who needs superheroes when you have Dave Grohl?
While the title track is definitely the slowest song on the album, it’s also the heaviest. The guitars rip into you and the surprising guest vocalist on this track is Shawn Stockman – better known for his boy band, Boyz II Men.
In fact, the guests that appear on this album are actually quite surprising and there was definitely potential for some of them to take over the songs but they just complement Grohl perfectly. Who would have thought that Justin Timberlake and Paul McCartney would have appeared on a Fooeys album?
So where does this album fit in with the rest? Well for me personally, there is only one other album that beats this one and that album is Wasting Light and that’s because both of these albums are all substance and no filler.
Concrete And Gold doesn’t just deliver. It goes over and beyond expectations and every song is Fooeys at their best. In fact, this is one of the albums that I needed to hear this year. Things weren’t looking too good on the rock front for a bit there but rock and roll ain’t dead baby… it’s back and stronger than ever.
KAREN LOWE
