Foo Fighters
Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace

THE REVIEW

We are at number 6 with this latest work for Dave Grohl and company.

And yet, despite having reached the sixth chapter of their story, the Foo, who at the release of "In Your Honor" said: "This is our greatest album ever, but I doubt there will ever be another CD from us, we think with this double album we will separate to go our different ways."

And instead? Here they are returning to us, all hyped up, with an amazing video plastered non-stop on MTV for a couple of months now "The Pretender" in which with the usual energy as always (perhaps a bit too predictable) the 4 heroes get soaked in a river of water dyed red that explodes behind them, hitting the police armed with batons and protective shields.
Another act of rebellion? Have the Foo fighters had enough of making comedic videos and never being taken seriously? Maybe not, as it seems, or at least it seems to emerge from the new CD, which replicates the same structure as the previous one (acoustic songs mixed with electric songs) in just one disc though (after all, it's expensive to produce another double album that turns out to be quite useless).

With Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (a shorter title no, eh?) the Foo take a step too far, inserting songs that on a first listen seem challenging, but after three, four listens are already memorized and feel familiar.
The duel between Grohl and acoustic-guitar virtuoso Kaki King ("The Ballad of Beaconsfield Miners") turns out to be a chapter of its own in such a CD,  literally abstracting itself and  making us suppose that Dave threw some songs onto a CD without paying much attention, perhaps too confident in the myriad of fans (including myself) who would have grabbed the CD as soon as it was released.

However, it is not a mediocre CD because you can undoubtedly see the Zeppelin-esque influence of Country and Hard Rock roots, inheriting much from CDs like Led Zeppelin 3 and ZOSO, although this influence seems to have come too late and too obvious, leaving even the most die-hard fan dissatisfied (I am always speaking of my own situation).

There's a nice '70s solo especially in  "Long Road To Ruin" a very catchy song and surely a future single to be extracted from this album, which is also greatly influenced by the modern music scene (see 30 Seconds To Mars, etc.), so much so that many of my acquaintances have stated that Grohl's screams within the CD recall the relentless screams of Jared Leto, frontman of the pseudo Emo-Alternative band 30 S.T.M.

I highlight as the best songs "Let it Die"; "Come Alive" and the stunning (I must admit) "Home" very sentimental and intimate played with the piano and accompanied by violins, allowing Mr. Grohl to experiment with his vocal abilities without having to resort to earthquake-effect screams and cries.