Review Summary: Happy ever after, counting down to zero hour.
Why was 2011’s Wasting Light so special? Sheltering from statements from fans that had lost hope that Grohl would resurrect the true face of rock, the band managed to deliver Light as a statement that rock would truly live on. But this was years after the fans reaction that Grohl’s past bands had not rendered and morphed into what was initially his solo project after Nirvana. They were eventually viewed as a narrow-minded, precarious, mainstream-backed exercise in trying to accustom the needs of a modern audience with unstable and ever-changing taste to desperately retain a sense of relevance. But fans and critics saw the good of what Grohl was trying to do in Wasting Light. They realized his intentions and emphasized that he had finally reached what the band was aiming for: a record that stylistically indulges both Grohl’s classic and newer sounds that kept the rock ‘n’ roll wheel rolling.
In retrospect, such statements merit some discussion and interpretation, especially given the nostalgic principles Light exhibits in the album’s conception, formation and execution and the influence they have made on these statements, and whether Light’s success can be asserted to sheer luck of these principles. Were the returns of Pat Smear and Butch Vig really able to influence the band’s songwriting past the rock shtick they had been churning out over the last 15 years? Light’s principles also provoked an evaluation of the bands aesthetic and concurrence with the past, going back to analog tape recording – a popular belief has been that the band’s exceedingly dynamic rock and aesthetic is more appeasing in a raw, lurid environment such as the band’s concerts – but was this move made to truly concur with this principle, or were they hoping to satisfy their long-awaiting fans that they were on the course that would lead to the album had been hoping for – an assortment of Grohl’s previous associations and modern ideals? Whatever may have initiated Wasting Light’s success, it’s apparent that Concrete and Gold takes a different approach, and all the more for it.
Grohl’s collaboration with Greg Kurstin, producer for pop giants such as Adele and Sia, and musician for indie-pop duo The Bird and the Bee, archetypes his objective and intention for Concrete and Gold. Grohl being Grohl insists on mainstream encouragement, but he inevitably drifts towards the natural sense of purpose he feels with his more eccentric, conglomerate side projects and contributions, and accordingly aspires for that purpose on Concrete and Gold. If there’s anyone who could bring Grohl out of his shell, it’s Kurstin, and he prevails in being the first ever Foo contributor to exert a considerable influence on the bands work.
The result is a Foo album unlike any other. Grohl hasn’t just hinted at his complimenting identities from his previous work this time around, Kurstin has exerted a deeper and more classic influence and drawn a nerve from the bands work that has been singled out until now, eschewing the band’s sound with more 70’s and 80’s laden grooves, a more profound, intricate sonic aesthetic and a focus on atmosphere and precision; the band crunch through each acoustic segment, each thundering groove and each endearing experiment with true focus and passion. The whole thing breathes like no other Foo album. There are songs like “Arrows” which borrows from Light principles with its thundering, atmospheric Queens of the Stone Age-esque groove which ricochets itself into another sprawling, anthemic chorus. And there are also songs like “Happy Ever After (Zero Hour)” which conjures up real emotion and swirling, mystical atmosphere with its folk, Beatles-like acoustics (the Beatles are all over this thing) and “Sunday Rain” which stomps a Sound City: Reel to Reel crunch over swirling, glossy guitar work and classical, ambient melodies, which harmonize perfectly with Taylor Hawkins’s smooth vocal performance.
Much like the bands previous albums, there are all-star contributors – that’s Justin Timberlake behind those “la-la-las” on “Make It Right” and Paul McCartney behind the drums on “Sunday Rain.” They do little to influence the direction of the band’s new approach, but perhaps one of the most invigorating aspects of Concrete and Gold is that for the first time the band and Kurstin have had more of a creative output in the album’s experimentation and influence than the outside contributors. That’s the success of Concrete and Gold: the concrete in the gold, the sharp, customary, grounded sense of familiarity amongst the shining, renewed, revitalized sense of purpose, and these elements collide perfectly to create a concise, ambient, and vital late-career offering.
