Rip It Up

Foo Fighters: Saint Cecilia EP

I’ve got another confession to make, I’m not a huge Foo Fighters fan. I am a huge fan of free stuff however, so when uber-wealthy rockstar Dave Grohl decided to give away the Saint Cecilia EP for absolutely nothing (I didn’t even have to submit an email address, which was a huge plus), my mouse was helpless to resist the pull of the download button.

I’ll admit that Dave Grohl’s post-Nirvana work has never really struck a chord with me, but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t acknowledge their massive worldwide fan base. I mean, earlier this year a small town in Italy managed to get 1,000 musicians to play Learn to Fly in unison in an effort to get the band to perform there (it worked by the way). There is no denying their appeal, with some truly memorable songs, most notably Everlong, Foo Fighters cemented themselves as a consistently good band. But to me, this sort of reliability comes at the expense of being interesting.

Look, Dave Grohl seems like a totally likeable dude. He recently performed a whole slew of shows in the States while seated in an iron throne made of guitars due to a broken leg. He writes messages to his fans on his blog. He once painted himself red to play the devil in a Tenacious D video. Yet with the band’s recent output, Grohl and company have lost the mystique that comes with being a rock band, joining the ranks of middle-of-the-road power pop, much like Coldplay.

That being said, Saint Cecilia is a perfectly serviceable collection of songs. There are some “edgy” cuts, a slow burning ballad, a hook-laden title track. There is evidence here that the Foo Fighters have abandoned the middling Sonic Highways and have begun to explore greener pastures. Hard-core fans will rejoice; casual listeners will refrain from deleting it.

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