Today I am reviewing the awesome Foo Fighters album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace in preparation for the release of Wasting Light in a week or so. This album is made up of pure hard grunge. With a sound mildly reminiscent of Nirvana Grohl and company still manage to rock the world. The guitar sound is immense and extremely powerful, Grohl and Shiflett manage to create an extremely loud feel for the band. The bass is pretty solid and gets the occasional good fill, the drums are amazing and hugely powerful, finally the keyboard is majestic and beautiful. The vocals are very well done and occasionally Cobain-like. The lyrics cover a variety of topics but they typically have a sad feel to them.
The guitar sounds is impressive but could be improved upon. While the actual riffs and composition are fairly good the guitars feel a bit quiet compared to the vocals. In my opinion the guitars should be cranked up from around 8 to 11 just to give the guitar a louder and more impressive sound. The bass is solid and is very well synched with drums to create a steady and powerful rhythm section. The bass does get some really sick fills though, in particular on the track Come Alive. The drums are excellent because they are varied and unique and truly reflect the feel of the music. Finally the keyboards are excellent, they are used on about 4 songs but on those songs they are beautiful, they have an orchestral and magical feel.
The vocals are almost always excellent. Grohl manages to blend his own style of singing well with one reminiscent of Cobain. In my opinion the best songs are when Grohl imitates Cobain, however when Grohl just does his own thing he is still skilled and always impressive. Grohl has a wonderful voice, and while he can not really change tones he does let a lot of his love for music bleed through. The singing on this album is at times harsh and other times sweet and calm showing a variety of interests in his music. The lyrics are usually about one of two things. The first thing that they are often about is love. The other common lyrical topic here is sadness. Grohl does a good job of reflecting the emotions of both love and sadness through his singing and it is simply beautiful.
Overall this is a very impressive album with a beautiful sound. The guitar is nice sounding, but could be turned up to dominate the music more. In addition the bass is impressive with a couple of killer fills and provide tight rhythm. The drums are very creative and reflect the beauty of the music. To round out the instrumental section the keyboards are powerful, beautiful and majestic. The vocals are excellent and often Cobain-like which is obviously good. The lyrics themselves are creative however the lyrical topics could be a bit more varied. All in all this is an excellent album that any grunge fan should enjoy.
OVERALL 9/10
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