Great Album, Reminiscent of Nirvana While Still Remaining Foo Fighters-esqueby Juared
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April 01, 2011:
I listened to this album on their website, although I did preorder it on vinyl. It has some of the sound of Nirvana, it's definitely more on the grunge side than other Foo Fighters albums. Krist Novoselic, Nirvana's bassist, plays on I Should Have Known. Some parts near the end remind me of Nirvana's first album, Bleach.
More on track, I'll review each individual song.
Bridge Burning has a somewhat Breed-esque sound (Breed as in the Nirvana song), except a little less aggressive vocals. It has some of the chromatic chord progressions that the Foo Fighters are famous for.
Rope isn't so similar to Nirvana (which I keep talking about, I'll try to refrain from that.), it's more of a Foo Fighters kind of thing. The guitar at the beginning and near the end is a nice touch. The drum beats aren't ridiculously simple, but not ridiculously complex either. The ride cymbal during the chorus is a nice touch.
Dear Rosemary is a little more mellow, and also has the famous chromatic chord progressions (which are when the chords are in a pattern where they just go up and then down, an example would be a I-II-IV-VI-IV-I progression.), the lyrics are a little (deeper, shall I say?) than the previous tracks. The bridge about 3/4 through the song is a nice touch, it sounds almost emotional, despite the simplicity.
White Limo is a lot more aggressive than Dear Rosemary. The vocals sound like Dave is singing through a megaphone. There's a decent amount of chunky palm-muting sounds with the guitar, and a classic kind of Foo Fighters drum sound. There's some awesome Dave screams too. The bass doesn't stand out a whole lot though, the bass lines are fairly simple. The music video, which you can watch on the internet, obviously isn't a heavily budgeted video, but it's humorous, which is probably better than a "cool" music video. It reminds me of Nirvana's movie, "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!," in which the band mostly just messes around.
Arlandria sounds a lot like punk at first, but then after you realize it's calmed down, it sounds more chill. Then the almost nursery-rhyme-like part before the chorus is a nice transition to a fairly lightly distorted chorus. The lead guitar sounds nice, it's still simple but awesome. Again, the chromatic chord progression is fairly obvious. 3/4 through, a nice drum beat with toms comes in with the basic guitar riff, then Dave sings, building up to a famous Dave scream.
These Days calms down a little more. It kind of sounds a little folkish, if I do say so myself. The tempo is slower. The distortion is lighter. Simple chord progressions should be noted. Not a whole lot else to say.
Back and Forth, which is also the name of their movie coming out in theaters on April 5th only. (I'll go to it, it's going to be awesome.), is great. It gets heavier, which is a nice touch from the previous 2 songs. The bass stands out. The drums are simple. Parts of it remind me of Learn to Fly a lot. The general sound sounds fairly happy.
A Matter of Time starts out sounding like older Nirvana, reminds me of (New Wave) Polly, which was on Nirvana's album, Incesticide. It turns out to be a little calmer than that, it has some fairly fast palm muting, with simple drums (What were you expecting, something like Everlong's drum track?). Almost half way through some (what sounds like) vibrato guitar playing comes in, it sounds nice and somewhat like These Days.
I don'...
Maybe the all-analog approach is worth itby mAlformEd
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May 24, 2011:
Reading through a recent issue of an audio magazine I saw a write up on ths album's production. Along with Praise for Butch Vig's contributions, there was extensive attention paid to the lack of digital processing anywhere. Insteda of using Pro Tools to tighten up a rhythm part or correct pitch, everything went to tape, and any editing was done the old fashioned way (presumably with a razor blade). In my opinion, the performance and the quality of the amps is more essential than a reel of tape, but what do i know? The results seem to speak for themselves; the album has a very rich saturated sound that is hard to produce in digital.
I have no favorite track, but I think the whole album warrants a listen.