Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace

Dave Grohl must be a pretty contented chap these days. Regarded as one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, a member of probably the most iconic band of the 1990's, and since then proved himself capable of being a first class frontman and a quality songwriter into the bargain. In fact, he's so content that starting with 2002's One By One, he's been perfectly happy to release album after album of pointless recycled mediocre guff. Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace - it has to be said - starts off in a promising way. Lead single The Pretender might not have the impact or originality of, say, Monkey Wrench, but at least it packs a punch. From then on however, things go downhill rather quickly. Let It Die is a cliched quiet-loud piece while Erase/Replace borrows heavily from The Colour and the Shapes My Hero. It seems to be now that if you've heard one Foo Fighters song, you've pretty much heard them all. The only highlight aside from The Pretender is Statues, rightly compared to Paul McCartney's earliest solo records. After this the album slips back into ridiculously familiar territory, before closing with a tepid piano ballad called, fittingly, Home. The Foo Fighters are clearly comfortable here, but it doesn't hurt to go outside the box and shake things up once in a while. A laboured effort that will nevertheless keep Dave Grohl happy and content.

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gord.