Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

There is putting a shift in and there is pushing it just that one step far before the first signs of a crumble start to appear. It can happen if time is not taken away from the studio and the filtering system of creativity is slightly blunted and becomes torn round the edges. The greats can get away with it however for perhaps a little while longer and whilst Sonic Highways, the new studio album from Foo Fighters, is for the most part a rock dream it is sadly not the full romp that has come to define the group for last decade and a half.

The problem may perhaps stem that unlike alike every studio album before Sonic Highways, there is no defining moment in which the listener perks up and thinks that their attention has been grabbed fully; there is not a single song that rises out of the quagmire and ooze of Rock’s insatiable appetite that normally gets the gastric juices flowing more than any other. It is an album which, whilst flowing constantly like the Hudson River as it goes past the ports and intersecting alleyways of New York, doesn’t rampage, create havoc and leave devastation in its wake like a ship being tossed around by the rolling majesty of the Atlantic Ocean. It is an album of plain sailing, of a daily excursion between Malta and Gozo, it is nice, it is enjoyable, but you would soon get bored of the same view day after day.

In an album where average is the norm, it can be a test of character for the musicians involved to show any type of enthusiasm for the songs they are producing, thankfully this doesn’t quite fit with the ethos of Dave Grohl or Foo Fighters, this is a man, a band who pour every sinew, every aching joint into the very being of the band, which is what makes the overall package seem so peculiar and normal.

Whilst there are no rip-roaring, stand out sonic heavens awaiting the listener, there are some moments in which exploration should be sought, if only to quench the thirst that surely awaits those who venture in unaided. The Feast and the Famine (perhaps a bit close to the knuckle), What Did I Do?/God As My Witness and Subterranean  are very good songs, they just don’t kick the raging bull of indifference where it hurts enough to make them epic.

Foo Fighters are a band you want to like, you normally know you are in for a ride so good that they would have it at the very best amusement park, Sonic Highways though would be bypassed by all but the dedicated fan in favour of a couple of goes on the dodgems.    

Ian D. Hall