It’s Foo Fighters’ world and we’re just living in it! In pretty quick succession, the band released a couple of singles, performed on SNL and at Joe Biden’s inauguration, and then promptly dropped a new album’s worth of songs on us all. Oh, yeah, they also got their name on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voting list this year! Quite a busy time for the band who have managed to make the best of a shitty situation. I know they’d be touring the world right now if they could.
Anyway, their latest release, Medicine at Midnight, is somewhat reminiscent of their prior 2017 release Concrete and Gold, but I’ll welcome any new material I can get! There were a few somewhat obvious differences I noticed this time around though, such as a lot more back-up vocals (probably featuring Dace Grohl’s daughter, Violet), and some looping. While most of the tracks are fast-paced, none really seem as heavy as some of their older material, like “The Pretender,” and then there are even some outright slow tracks. Not really for me unfortunately.
Sadly, that goes for most of the nine songs on Medicine at Midnight. At least coming off a first listen-through. Some of the back-ups vocals ruined perfectly good songs, and that’s saying a lot. For instance, the opening song “Making a Fire” could have actually been fire had they forgone the additional vocals. The rest just weren’t really my style, but outright awful was “Chasing Birds.” It almost sounded like a spoof track a band would make…yikes! The only two songs that really stood out to me were “Holding Position” and “No Son of Mine.” Both had a nice tempo and were really just catchy!
Look, just because I didn’t come away loving the Foo Fighters’ newest crop of songs doesn’t mean they’re bad! They just didn’t connect with me. I’m sure my sister and my dad will totally disagree with my assessment on this album, and perhaps I could change my tune if I give it another listen through. Luckily for me, when the band does get the chance to tour again, they’ve got almost a dozen other records and countless singles to choose from to play in a live setting. Here’s hoping they get the chance to this year!