Foo Fighters hit the hard shoulder for Sonic Highways

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      Foo Fighters
      Sonic Highways (Roswell/RCA)

      Foo Fighters’ eighth album is presented as a road map of American music, with each of the eight tracks on Sonic Highways recorded in a different city and all of them featuring a high-profile local guest. Despite the lofty concept, however, the Foos don’t display much breadth and mostly stay within their alt-rock wheelhouse.

      In fact, the band’s country-traversing recording approach seems to have been a massive waste of money, since these songs bear little apparent relation to the cities where they were recorded. Take, for example, “Congregation”, which was laid down in Nashville with country singer Zac Brown, but has a riff lifted straight out of “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots.

      Of course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this, since the Foos are one of the world’s most successful rock bands, and there are plenty of fans who will eagerly welcome another collection of hard-hitting anthems. But the trouble is that Sonic Highways doesn’t feature any hook-filled earworms destined for radio ubiquity, and it’s hard to imagine any of these songs holding up in concert against, say, “Everlong” or “My Hero”.

      The closest the album has to a classic track is “Something From Nothing”, the muscular licks of which are boosted by an unexpected, funky squelch. Even here, however, the chorus resembles a less catchy reworking of past hit “The Pretender”.

      So even if Sonic Highways includes some passable cuts for rock fans, its most interesting feature is the story of its creation, rather than the music itself.

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