Foo Fighters, In Your Honor (2005)

An ambitious double-whammy: an in your face rock album followed by a chilled acoustic album. Kind of a risky combo if you ask me, but this one works, and the true test of this album - or of these 2 albums really - is that I just don't want to leave either of them unfinished. Neither disc of this album is a particularly challenging listen; it's anthemic American rock at its most American, followed by easy acoustic guitar at its... well, easiest. But I think it's the contrasting styles, and the fact that this album pulls them off, that is the real genius here.

The first album is pretty classic Foos stuff: intense aggressive drumming, brash vocals, guitar-driven rock. It's easy and populist, but it's good solid music. I like it, a lot, but there's nothing really that remarkable about it as far as Foos albums go. It's the second, acoustic, half of this offering that is the defining, memorable part.

I was inspired to listen to the second album again recently. I remember listening to it on the coast of Croatia, desperately homesick, about 5 years ago. In the final few days of a mind-blowing six weeks backpacking through some weird and wonderful places by myself, totally broke, I spent a few days with a beautiful Croatian couple. It had been a challenging few weeks, and this album was my soundtrack at the time. Sometimes there really is a place for easy music, and the quiet restraint of the second part of this album is as comforting as it is clever.

The acoustic half of the album is gentle, and has that guy-with-a-guitar vibe that I am a bit of a sucker for. 'Friend of a Friend' - for obvious reasons - sometimes reminds me a little of Nirvana unplugged. But Dave Grohl is superb in his own right. He's a fantastic drummer, but, as this album demonstrates, he's also way too talented to just be one of the best drummers in the world. In this album, we get a healthy dose of a side of him, particularly vocally, that we hadn't seen much of previously. And it's beautiful.




I saw the Foo Fighters live in 2003 (among, incidentally, one of my favourite Big Day out lineups, incluing Jane's Addiction, Queens of the Stone Age, and Kraftwerk among others) - and they have an incredible energy. I think they're a pretty special band. And the fact that they can pull this heavily contrasting album off is, I think, testament to their talent.

Lovely.