Caught in the echo chamber, maybe? A rollout of new material from Foo Fighters has been a nice reminder of what they were capable of doing. The key there is the past tense. They no longer seem up for the fight, this recent tour of theirs where on the door tickets were marked at £100 a pop feels like a cash-in before a crash out. But there are those who will have a nostalgic connection to the band, and rightly so. There will be some who heard So Here We Are and thought the band were on for a new embrace of deeper meanings. Their best work being a lament to their late drummer, Taylor Hawkins, and ditching the usual rock and roll sound Dave Grohl has tinkered with for three decades should have been an inspired change of pace. Had this sound continued on, all would be forgiven. But Caught in the Echo marks a second, snooze-inducing piece which Foo Fighters’ frontman promised would be a breath of fresh air. How wrong he is.
Where Grohl suggested this would be a whole new era for the fighters of foo, it doesn’t sound like it. The same air of emptiness to his lyrical input, the same volatile yet hollow instrumentals. Foo Fighters sound totally convinced by their stock option style of musical choice, and it’s a great shame for those who believed Grohl when he said this would be different. Caught in the Echo still chases the Best of You blueprint, but has neither the internal emotional stability nor the external coolness required to repeat such a barnstormer of a song. Caught in the Echo promises to be a punchy, post-punk number, but it barely manages to hold itself together. Those same, decades-old guitar structures are right in place, and then the lacklustre writing from Grohl sinks any chance of that lighter percussion from coming through. Ironic it may be to hear Grohl repeat the claim of breaking from the echo, all Caught in the Echo can do here is, well, echo previous success.
A break from the shouty punk thrills to bring about this instrumental and vocal build-up is a great experience, but knowing where it’ll head deflates it before the band even reaches that explosive blow-out. It sounds fantastic, but Grohl and the band has operated on the safety of rock and roll with punk-inspired flavours for too long. A brief break from it on the grief-stricken previous album had inspired hopes of a different style entirely, but this return to usual programming is a real shame. If you hadn’t heard the preceding album, though, then you could at least hold out hopes of a spirited experience. There is, at least, that much at play. It’s a far better experience than Your Favourite Toy, an album track which felt dead on arrival.
But Foo Fighters had tested the waters twice before the release of Caught in the Echo, a tiresome song but a song which feels inherently truthful all the same. For all the echoed meanings and lack of innovation, this playing it safe style which has seen Grohl maintain his seat near the top of the rock and roll pile, there’s still an element of escapism from the band which will never lose its value. Caught in the Echo calls back to the glory days of the band, but it does nothing but milk the powdery nostalgia people now have for the band. Growing up and listening to Foo Fighters in the car is not a reason to do it again twenty years later, especially not when the band, despite the growth and change of its ever-changing line-up, fares not one bit on the context of their work. There’s escapism and there’s fear of engaging the real world. Foo Fighters find themselves in the latter now.
