Brief Music Reviews

Foo Fighters In Your Honor

The new Foo Fighters record - 2-discs
Disc 1 = Heavy Loud Rock that makes you drive faster and play air guitar.
Disc 2 = Acoustic, singer-songwriter pop ditties that immediately hook you in.
Initial Impression: I like it!!!

Here is a broad truism regarding Foo Fighters: I essentially like everything they do. I like Dave Grohl. I actually met him and spoke with him for a few minutes at a Guided By Voices show in NYC a few years ago and walked away semi star-struck. He is a happy guy who gives off a bright vibe. His music is catchy, it possesses an exotic dichotomy between heavy and light, dark and bright, melodic and noisy. He is a logical extension of the Nirvana's sugary pop overtones, minus the undertones of devastating depression, crippling addictions and psychiatric oblivion. It is great heavy rock music derived from the underground and brought to the mainstream. There are no allusions to any street cred, no ridiculous punk rock maxims adhered to, no nonsense clouding the message and music.
As mentioned above, In your Honor is a double disc release with one "heavy" disc, one "Mellow" disc. It works. A good Foo Fighters song enters your consciousness and immediately settles in as if it were always there. It taps into a primal font of melody and arrangements that are ingrained in the brain from years of classic rock, new wave, punk, post-punk metal and alternative subcultures, all blended into one delightful aural confection.
The opener of the disc, the title track is the call to arms that defines the rest of both discs - more emotive than emo (yuck), more tuneful than a circus calliope, heavier than molten magma mixed with lead, peanut butter and egg nog, and as introspective as any Jackson Browne record.

Great band, another great album.

Grand Magus Wolf's Return

Ok, this is hard to relay to people who are not familiar with this band. They are a Swedish band inappropriately grouped in with the Stoner Rock subgenre based on a few chord progression and the downtuned tone of their Gibson SG. Note to morons: Just because a band flaunts its Black Sabbath influences does not mean you can automatically assign them an eternal slot next to Fu Manchu and Kyuss.

Grand Magus is 100% pure heavy metal. SludgeyDio, yet clear riffage, screaming leads straight out of Sabbath Volume 4, gruff but melodic vocals, existing in a realm somewhere between Chris Cornell and Ronnie James , powerful and glorious...
Here is my impression of what transpires on this disc: A sky of nutella raining down the remnants of mega-lard on a mudscape crackling with electric razor wire. Green clouds part to reveal a moon composed of cinderblocks, grinding out the white hot steam-powered cadence of amplified locust drone, Forty four million swords angrily slashing the slowly-congealing air, rich with the scent of ozone and burnt rust, contact made of the crimson throat of the quasi-fire beast, that-which-is-not-to-be-mentioned evermore. Burning Pentagrams and Viking violence pillaging the molten pewter goblets - a meniscus of black blood, tension challenged by the tremors of resistance, muscular cords at critical mass, pressure risen to levels of obliteration. Gluten and cooling paraffin swirl in a symphony of mad latitude, all recycling in a vertical rip current where up is the new down.