Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Taking Medicine At Midnight can lead to the mind going places it has no right to be, the sense of the equilibrium being askew, the mist descending and creating a thick fog to which anger is subdued, where dreams become stretched, like shapeless marzipan they lose their consistency, and no matter how much you enjoy the sensation, it just feels as though you are out of whack, out of time with yourself and what you desire in a world without medication. 

Such a sense of fog has come in the form of change for The Foo Fighters, the anger and demand is still there, however it is now fighting with Time itself, age perhaps, the realisation that in the last few months since November the world has changed in a way that calls for hope rather than the touch of destruction that had become insipid, insanely familiar, in the last few years under the guise of revolution without responsibility.

In Medicine At Midnight The Foo Fighters have delivered an album that is less bounce, less but certainly more introspective, more melancholic and self-examining than arguably they have ever produced before. The album is one of strangeness, of the unfamiliar expression and whilst it is brooding, insightful, and dare it be said, beguiling and beautiful, it also finds itself as looking in a mirror that has lost its polish, the strength to show the voyeur exactly what they wish to witness, the heavy grit and grip of buoyant edginess, which has the Foo Fighters stamp firmly impressed on the heart.

It comes down to understanding though, that attitudes and desires change, and in that tracks such as Shame Shame, Waiting On A War, No Son Of Mine and Love Dies Young, it is in the hands of the union forged by the band that the music still inspires, still finds a way to resonate, it is just in the desire of expression that the feeling of loss, of subdued analysis is slightly overwhelming.

In the end the respect earned by all within the band will always see them find ways to make music that people will either rave about or find ways to be puzzled by what they deem to be an unrecognisable sound; appearances at the end are subjective, opinions become ghost over time, and as long as there is determination to continue the fight, then the Foo Fighters will see the medicine as a remedy to solve what is surrounding us all in this time of frustration and damage.

Ian D. Hall