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Feb 05, 2021 Foo Fighters By Matt Conner

At this point, fans are either leaning into Foo Fighters’ sonic turns in recent years or remain content with spinning The Colour and the Shape indefinitely.

While the Foos always tipped a proverbial cap to various genres while standing atop their grunge-turned-modern rock foundations, Dave Grohl and company have embraced long-held influences tighter than ever in recent years, allowing prog and pop flavors to dominate multiple songs. The result is a more vibrant sonic bouquet—or a polarizing direction. It depends on which Foo Fighters fan you’d ask.

Concrete and Gold, the band’s 2017 release, cemented the devil-may-care attitude toward expectations (pun intended), and Medicine at Midnight, the band’s brand new album, follows suit. The evidence is clear from the outset with “na na na” gang vocals (feat. The Belle Brigade’s Barbara Gruska, The Bird & The Bee’s Inara George, and Grohl’s teenage daughter Violet, among others) kicking in within seconds on album opener “Making a Fire.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder here, which means each Medicine-al surprise is going to go down differently for each listener. The title track’s bluesy bass line works well as a memorable mid-tempo highlight. Lead single “Shame Shame” rides a simple riff and funky pocket work from Nate Mendel and Taylor Hawkins to great effect. The acoustic build of “Waiting on a War” features what the Foos have always done so well—develop that killer adrenaline build—and it’s hard not to nod as Grohl sings, “I need more.”

Whether fans will love these songs or not depends on how open-minded they are when they hit play on a new Foo Fighters record. It’s not hard to imagine quizzical looks on the faces of some listeners when the mellow piano and guitar tones of “Chasing Birds” are heard for the first time. Then again, Foo Fighters have gifted fans plenty of melodic rock albums over the years. The most important thing is keeping Grohl and his bandmates interested enough to keep giving us new music. (www.foofighters.com)

Author rating: 6/10