Review Summary: Comforting proof of Dave Grohl's songwriting abilities.
For all of its cross-platform intrigue,
Sonic Highways managed to cement Dave Grohl as more of a good guy with passions than a rock musician. It's a gimmick that's carried much of Foo Fighters' career in the previous year, notable for an indulgence in covers and overcompensating thrones. Of course, Foo Fighters are often at their best when they stick to making music without gimmicks or pretense, with
Saint Cecilia being nothing more than 15-minutes of pretty cool rock music.
Whilst its aesthetic of jamming together abandoned bits and pieces lends itself to
Sonic Highways' compositional style, the tracks here benefit from spontaneity and verve, given that there are no rules or contexts binding material to be written within a given amount of days. At its finest moment, "The Never Ending Sigh", it's effortless in a way that the overworked
Sonic Highways wasn't, working the rock song mold in a way most others manage to bungle entirely. Whilst "Something from Nothing" and "The Feast and the Famine" still managed to hit some form of acceptable rock radio format, the execution could come to feel forced or deliberate in its attempts to embody certain ideas; the songs on
Saint Cecilia are unassuming and better for it. The title-track is proof of that, the sort of song that seemed so easy for Grohl to write only a few years ago, now a comforting proof of his own songwriting abilities.
Granted, it's just a toss-off EP, the sort of format casual enough to disservice the material; although it's hard to imagine under 3-minute blasts of power pop like "Sean" or "Savior Breath" ever taking up reasonable space on a Foo Fighters full-length, it deserves more than to be dropped carelessly into the annals of the internet at no cost. Despite the lack of care in its distribution,
Saint Cecilia is confirmation that although Dave Grohl may continue down the path of documentarian with too many friends, there's always that chance he might come back and effortlessly bang out a pretty cool rock album.
