Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace

Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace is the latest studio album from the Foo Fighters, and it's one that I've been looking forwards to for a little while now. While it has several fairly good songs that are up with the best of their stuff, this album doesn't quite made the grade as compared to their other albums. Instead, it's more of the same, especially after the fantastic double album, In Your Honor. Where In Your Honor was split between fast and slow songs, Echoes Silence Patience and Grace is much the same, just with fewer songs. And, while they were at it, they did do a good job with this album, it just feels very much like that prior album.

The album opens up with the fantastic The Pretender, which reminds me a lot of the fanstastic Best Of You. Both songs have an incredible amount of energy between the two of them. Fast, heavy guitarwork and loud lyrics. This is one area where the Fighters excel atl. They also do a good job with ramping up the energy, such as in what happens with Let It Die, where it starts off slowly, with some soft guitar licks, while building over the length of the song. Erase/Replace is fast and blunt, and easily one of the weaker songs of the album. The rest of the album settles into two catagories, fast with a decent beat and slower, more thoughtful. Long Road to Ruin, Cheer Up Boys, Summer's End, and But, Honestly all fit into the first catagory, and blend together nicely. Come Alive, Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners, Statues and Home all fit into the second and likewise work well together.
This is one of the weaknesses of the album - there's really nothing, except for The Predender, Let It Die and Home that really stand out here, even among their other albums. Even back to The Colour and the Shape, there's a predictible sound that holds the Foo Fighters back a bit.
This isn't to say that this album is horrible and should be set on fire and returned to the store - quite the opposite, these guys aren't Nickelback. The album is very listenable and fairly enjoyable. It's a very good thing that I really enjoyed In Your Honor, because there's not a whole lot of differences between the two. Which isn't a bad thing, because sometimes it's nice to listen to something like that. The formula that they've come up with is variable, and it's a good sound for them - it works. I'd recommend this album, but it's not mindblowing. But comfortable.

Let It Die - Foo Fighters
Home - Foo Fighters

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