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Album Review

Echo’s Patience Silence and Grace

Foo Fighters

This is an anthology of strong new songs by a great bunch of bands, all calling themselves Foo Fighters. The band’s sixth studio album is a transitional rather than definitive piece of work, but one that sees them growing older with 'patience and grace'.  Lead single ‘The Pretender’ kicks off ‘Echoes…’ with the kind of balls-to-the-wall bombast that the newly reformed Led Zep should take note of (Grohl’s debt to Page and Plant can be seen right from the outset – ‘The Pretender’s’ introduction bears a striking resemblance to ‘Stairway to Heaven’). It’s formulaic, sure, but as an attention-grabbing opening it ranks amongst their best. It’s not quite the thudding power chords of ‘All My Life’ probably the last great Foo Fighters single, but will reduce any lager-fuelled crowd to sweaty carnage on their forthcoming British tour. The glam-candy Fighters in "Long Road to Ruin," the Southern-rock stompers who butt in with "Summers End" and the Goth folkies on "Stranger Things Have Happened." All contribute to make this album probably one of the most diverse pieces of music you will ever hear. Singer-guitarist and ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl is used to spreading this variety across whole albums, the one-man power pop of 1995's Foo Fighters; the real-band slam of '97's The Colour and the Shape; the unplugged CD in the 2005 set In Your Honour. He has finally figured out how to make one record out of all that leeway.

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There are bumps in the winding round on which this album takes you for a ride, "Stranger Things" is about as strange as the colour brown, its totally run-of-the mill and wont cause you orifice to jump for joy (drums and fuzz would have helped) and a disappointing finish: "Home," which is just Grohl on vocals, piano and too much melodrama. Grohl, guitarist Chris Shiflett, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer Taylor Hawkins make the same points about loss, defiance and rescue better earlier: in the machine-gun-guitar stutter of "Erase/Replace" (Grohl writes riffs like a drummer) and the shape-shifting "Let It ...

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