Foo Fighters
Medicine At Midnight
RCA/Roswell
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How Dave got his groove back. That could well be the parenthetical title for the latest Foo Fighters’ offering Medicine At Midnight. On this, their tenth studio album, the Foo have definitely dropped a bit of swagger into their hard rock strut.
Recorded pre-pandemic and shelved through all of 2020, you might have thought the plan was to scrap the album in favor of something more reflective of the past twelve months with Foo Fighters leaning into the nihilism, screaming into the abyss. But instead, Dave Grohl and the boys waited it out and opted to rely on good-time party jams to add some funk and musical escapism to our experiences.
And goddammit if the music isn’t catchy as all hell.
Tracks like album opener “Making A Fire” with its rollicking groove and sing-along inducing “Nah, Nah, Nahs” automatically lift you up and sweep you into a joyous bubble of rock. With an anthem-ready chorus of Grohl wailing, “I’ve waited a lifetime / to live / It’s time to ignite / I’m making a fire,” the feeling is more one of optimistic change versus any destructive tendencies.
Elsewhere, “Shame Shame,” with all its ethereal rock grandeur and magnetic pull, lays you out, and the titular “Medicine At Midnight” channels a Bowie-esque Let’s Dance alluring vibe to keep your toes tapping and head bopping. And “Holding Poison,” with its frenzied pop-rock strains, dials in some new wave swirls for good measure.
Nothing feels out of step though. For anyone even paying cursory attention to the band’s catalog over the past 25 years would be well aware of their ability to entwine irresistible hooks and pop sensibility into their songwriting regardless of how crunchy or dialed in the music was. There has always been a melodic craft present in their work. And it’s well on display here.
Tracks like the rocking “Cloudspotter,” the mosh pit reckoning of “No Son Of Mine,” and the stadium bounce of “Love Dies Young” all showcase the Foo’s ability to spin perfect tunes that seem to blend the best elements of Zeppelin, The Beatles, Queen, and ABBA. You hear hints of influence, but it’s never in isolation. Nor is it without reinvention.
The extended ethereal voices in the backing of the acoustic lead, laid back rocker “Chasing Birds” might give you a momentary XTC vibe, but it doesn’t distract from the journey you’re being taken on. If anything, you feel like Grohl is nodding at you, rewarding your musical knowledge, and bringing you in closer to the feel he’s going for.
The most Foo-ey (yeah, that’s a term now) track on the album is the sky-reaching “Waiting On A War” that starts with jangling acoustic guitars and feels like the offspring of “Big Me” and “Learning To Fly.” The production is flawless as the song builds bar by bar with added strings, thumping beat, and the classic Grohl growl as the urgency increases with every passing refrain.
Medicine At Midnight affords Foo Fighters another stadium-ready set of songs. Many ache to be heard live, where extra gusto will no doubt be given to them. And that’s the bittersweet nature of the album. Songs made pre-pandemic with a sense of optimism that should have blared from staked amps the world over. And indeed, that time will come.
But for now, we can be drawn into the nuances and intricacy of the writing and performance before things once more turn all the way up to 11.
Notable Tracks: “Chasing Birds” | “Making A Fire” | “Shame Shame” | “Waiting On A War”
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