Pretty much every record is something completely new and wheel-reinventing if bands are to be believed. ‘Saint Cecilia’, a surprise new EP from the Foo Fighters, appears at first glance to have a chance of backing up that blurb.
According to a letter penned by Dave Grohl to accompany the five track collection, ‘Saint Cecilia’ represents an off-the-cuff burst of recording and good times, housed in ad-hoc conditions at the Austin hotel of the same name and featuring enough margaritas and visits from musician pals - Ben Kweller, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Gary Clark Jr. - to keep the party running for days.
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, though, the EP has taken on added significance for the band. “There is a new, hopeful intention that, even in the smallest way, perhaps these songs can bring a little light into this sometimes dark world,” Grohl wrote.
The recording process documented here is packed full of intriguing images. There’s Grohl recording vocals in a hotel bathroom, drums set up in front of the fireplace and amps resting at the foot of beds.
But barely a drop of that ambience filters into the songs. Much like ‘Sonic Highways’, the band’s US road trip turned album and documentary, ‘Saint Cecilia’ has backstory to burn but ends up as a serviceable Foo Fighters record.
That’s less surprising when you consider that the songs rekindled here have been kicking around as half-finished ideas for years. The bones of the closer, The Neverending Sigh, are almost old enough to drink in the States.
The takes here are lively and relaxed, swerving between the laconic Iron Rooster and Savior Breath, the sort of punk workout that Grohl used to partake in a lot more regularly. The title track, though, is as engaging a pop-rock song as we’ve heard from the Foos in some time and finds Kweller’s vocal harmonies taking it into quietly anthemic territory. It might not last too many rounds with the best moments of ‘The Colour and the Shape’ or the band’s debut, but it out-works most of ‘Sonic Highways’ with some ease.
The prospect of Foo Fighters going off script now seems remote. There are a lot of stadiums out there in which to kick out stadium-sized jams and ‘Saint Cecilia’ provides a couple of keepers for consideration when they reconvene in a couple of years. Cut free from the context of its recording, though, this EP isn’t much more than a decent hit out from a band who have created and subsequently streamlined a signature sound.
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