Foo Fighters are back with their 10thstudio album in “Medicine at Midnight” their first album in four years (Concrete and Gold) with a more upbeat happier album that was recorded very quickly just before Covid19 times in 2020 as it only has nine tracks. In David Grohl’s own words “David Bowie‘s Let’s Dance album, but not like a EDM, disco, modern dance record but rather this really up, fun record” that is filled with anthemic, huge, sing-along rock songs.” In drummer Courtney Hawkins’s words “more pop oriented than their usual post-grunge sound.” Grohl adds that the album was inspired by “Our love of rock bands that makeup these upbeat, up-tempo, almost danceable records”. ‘
In their 25 years they are one of the more steady rock bands at consistently making good music as they evolve over the years, that it might not be a great album as a whole but has plenty of good songs. This album as a whole is solid to great like the ones that came before it. Pretty much every song is either catchy or rocks out as Grohl is at his best when he cuts loose and rocks out.
“Making a Fire”, “Medicine at Midnight” “Holding Poison” and “Love Dies Young” stick out due to their really rocking out on them. While tracks “Chasing Birds” is a beautiful quiet song that eventually picks up like “Waiting on a War” which also starts off quiet before erupting into an all out rocker with many different instruments. He is explaining war to his young daughter and it would be a great song to do live in an arena as it is one of my favorites.
In “No Son of Mine” which he does his usually rocking out has some of his usual screaming elements where he is calling out “the hypocrisy of self-righteous leaders, people that are guilty of committing the crimes they’re supposedly against”. “Cloudspotter” is the only song that is ‘eh’ to ok with some odd other vocals in the background but does rock out. While “Shame Shame” which was performed on SNL is a good catchy song it seems out of place with the rest of the album that is upbeat with this being a little sad.
We have to be thankful Grohl & Company still continues to actually care enough about their craft to continue to make good music because any band that has been around for that long could get bored or complacent. During these tough Covid19 times we all could use a little Medicine at Midnight to lift our spirits.