Has It Leaked is reporting that Foo Fighters’ new album Concrete and Gold has leaked, 4 days ahead of its release.
“T-Shirt” opens with Dave Grohl alone playing acoustic guitar, before kicking into full gear.
“Run” has a catchy melodic intro, but the song feels a bit disjoined as it goes on. It was the album’s lead single, but there are definitely better songs than this on the record.
“Make It Right” has sounds like a punk rock Beatles with Zeppelin riffage. It has harmonies that haven’t ever really been heard on a Foo Fighters album.
“The Sky Is A Neighborhood” definitely has the most radio potential on the album, thus why it was released as the second single. The track sounds a bit like if Imagine Dragons cut out their lame overproduction. It has that same sense of a KROQ radio chart topper, but with more guitars.
“La Dee Da” has guitar riffs that sounds like Aerosmith on crack. It sounds huge, with Alison Mosshart providing backing vocals.
“Dirty Water” opens with a simple acoustic guitar riff, and it has the album’s first ‘ballad’ moment, with the first half of the track being very laid back. It has a Hawaiian sense of peace to it, and Grohl’s vocals are strong here, like on The Colour and the Shape‘s more stripped down tracks. Halfway in the electric guitars kick in. In the songs, Grohl sings about being a ‘natural disaster.’
“Arrows” doesn’t sound completely dissimilar from Foo Fighters’ sound on their last few albums, but it is distinctly darker musically and lyrically.
“Happy Ever After (Zero Hour)” sounds like a homage to the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” which makes sense with Paul McCartney’s close bond with Dave Grohl, and his guest spot on this album (which isn’t on this track, but comes shortly after). There is a wistful contentment in the song lyrically, but it bemoans there being ‘no superheroes now.’ This is the first track to be devoid of any electric guitar riffage.
“Sunday Rain” is Taylor Hawkins’ spotlight track, featuring him on lead vocals and Paul McCartney on drums. Grohl recently stated in an interview that there were actually 18 minute takes of this song since Paul McCartney had so much fun drumming on it, but the final version that made it onto the record clocks in at around 6 minutes. The track has a heavier Pink Floyd vibe. There is a bizarre piano ending to the song. Hawkins definitely makes a case on this track for Grohl to allow him to write more on future records.
“The Line” sounds like standard Foo Fighters.
“Concrete and Gold” kicks off pretty suddenly with a brooding Grungy beginning. Grohl sings distorted over a sludgy midtempo guitar riff. The chorus brings in harmonies, provided by Justin Timberlake and Shawn Stockman. Grohl plays it pretty straight here lyrically and vocally, its one of his more serious songs in recent years.
Overall Concrete and Gold is a huge step up from Sonic Highways, which is arguably Foo Fighters’ worst and cheesiest album. Where that album played it safe and at times had hokey lyrics due to the concept of writing songs about specific cities, this album definitely feels like Grohl trying something a bit different, though he doesn’t completely go outside of his loud guitar comfort zone. This is an album the die hard fans will likely come to appreciate as time goes on.
