Episode 9: Foo Fighters - 'Echoes, Silence Patience & Grace'

fresh pots, imo

This week's an interesting album to me, because I probably haven't listened to it in full since it came out almost 11 years ago. Even though I'm a fan of the Foo Fighters, I've always more or less skipped this album and most of the songs on it when I've wanted to listen to them. Obviously some of the singles still get airplay on rock radio, but I wasn't a huge fan of the album when it came out, and I've never had the desire to revisit it.

This week gave me an opportunity to finally give the album another shake and compare it to the rest of the Foo Fighters' discography. I was very curious to see if I just never gave it a fair shot, and if time would be kinder to the album.

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (RCA Records, 2007)

Genres: Hard rock, alternative rock, post-grunge

Producer(s): Gil Norton

Metacritic Rating: 71/100

RYM Rating: 3.10/5 (3,190 ratings, ranked 5/9 in band's catalog)

Sputnik Rating: 3.2/5 (1,710 ratings, ranked 6/9 in band's catalog)

Weeks at #1: One (Week of October 13, 2007)

Other Accomplishments: Certified Platinum by RIAA and many other countries, 3 #1 Alt. Rock songs, "The Pretender" certified 2x Platinum

When I was checking RYM and Sputnik for the album's ratings, I was a bit surprised by what I listed as my own ratings. I had it at a "2.5" on RYM and a "2" on Sputnik. I didn't have any other Foo Fighters albums below a 3/5 rating. Did I really hate Echoes, Silence Patience & Grace that much? I hadn't really thought of the album at all in years, so maybe. But that I would at one point in my life rate it 2 stars out of 5 seemed a bit harsh.

But looking at the tracklist, I started to understand. Once you reach the 21st century, Foo Fighters records tend to go the way of their singles. Their self-titled 1995 debut, 1997's The Colour and Shape and to a lesser extent 1999's There Is Nothing Left to Lose are all strong albums, some of the best stuff late-90's mainstream alternative rock has to offer. But somewhere around One by One, the band became more of a singles band in my opinion. There's strong stuff throughout the discography that didn't get radio play, sure, but outside of 2011's great Wasting Light, I don't think the band really put out a strong album. At least not as strong as their singles.

So if I consider the Foo Fighters to be more of a singles band, and I look at the singles from Echoes, Silence..., I start to see why I wasn't a fan at the time. "The Pretender" was a massive hit, one of the three Foo Fighters songs to ever crack the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 (the other two being "Learn to Fly" and "Best of You"). And in 2007, I hated "The Pretender." It was just as I was starting to get into cool bands like Radiohead, and so I already was starting to have an aversion to what mainstream rock stations were playing at the time. It was also just overplayed, not only on the radio, but by my friends who largely liked listening to rock radio and Pandora stations. It got old fast.

I liked "Let It Die" even less. It's a too repetitive, takes too long to build and the payoff of said build isn't much. It feels a bit flat compared to some of the band's other tracks, even "The Pretender." "The Pretender" wasn't my thing, but it was catchy, especially the massive chorus, and I think it did more with a "quiet-then-loud" build than "Let It Die."

I still hate "Let It Die." It's one of my least favorite Foo Fighters singles. But I've come around a bit on "The Pretender" now that I'm not constantly bombarded by it and am no longer a pretentious 13-year-old that hates things because they're popular. I'd still put it in a lower-tier of the band's singles, but it's not as obnoxious as something like "Best of You" is. It doesn't quite have the timeless quality or endless replayability of an "Everlong" or an "All My Life," but it's a strong, catchy mainstream rock song. If I heard it in the car, I'd probably turn it up and sing along now.

Getting back into the album, I think my hatred of those two singles at the time blinded me from "Long Road to Ruin," which was also rather successful on the rock charts, but something I forgot. The other two almost feel a bit too much like the band is trying to make an anthem. "Long Road to Ruin" feels a lot more effortless. I think it helps that Grohl's voice isn't so shouty on this one. Musically, it moves along really nicely. The guitars are almost breezy, and the song feels like you're actually on a road somewhere, cruising along. 

Listening to the rest of the album made me realize I did give the album a bit of an unfair shake because of my bias towards thinking of "singles" when I think of Foo Fighters. The album is the rare case in later Foo Fighters albums where the deeper cuts are the highlights. It's a very back-loaded album. "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)" has that same melodic breeziness that "Long Road to Ruin" has. "But, Honestly" starts as a nice acoustic track that gradually builds into a frenzy by the end. Album closer "Home" is a beautiful piano ballad whose lyrics give the album its title. It's one of the best closing tracks in the band's catalog, and reminds you that Grohl has some versatility to him.

Unfortunately, the album does have that back-loaded quality to it. Even having reconsidered my views on "The Pretender," "Let It Die" is still a weak effort to go immediately into from there, and "Erase/Replace" doesn't differentiate itself much from previous material to capture the attention. It's not until you hit "Long Road to Ruin" at track number 4 that things start to pick up. I think a lot of Foo Fighters' appeal is their consistency, so when the band misses the mark a few times so soon in the album's runtime, it's easy to tune the rest out.

It's a shame, because I did discover some songs I really like and never gave a fair shake to. I still think it's in the lower-end of Foo Fighters releases, but it's not their worst. It's probably better than the bloated In Your Honor and some of their most recent material which is a bit uninspired, but the inconsistency at the start of the album brings it down compared to the band's best stuff.

Chris' Final Rating: 6/10

Chris' Official Foo Fighters Rankings:

1. The Colour and the Shape (1997)

2. Foo Fighters (1995)

3. Wasting Light (2011)

4. There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)

5. One by One (2002)

6. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)

7. Concrete and Gold (2017)

8. In Your Honor (2005)

9. Sonic Highways (2014)

Next Week: And she says "Baby, it's 3 a.m., I must be listening to Matchbox Twenty's part-greatest-hits-album-part-studio-album Exile on Mainstream"