So had my first fully conscious listen and have to say it's either these headphones or it's mastering is fucking awful.
Not sure how I feel about it yet. Didn't feel like Foo Fighters as we've known them before past the first two or 3 tracks. Definitely feels like it's an album about Taylor and then Virginia pretty much 50/50 but the tracks about her are more about death being inevitable and the ones about Taylor being more about grief and fragility of mortality. Or at least that's how I interpreted it upon this first listen. It's fucking raw and Rest sounds like it was sung with real emotion.
Dave's drumming seemed to be almost understated with the exception of a few tracks where it felt like it was Dave doing a tribute to Taylor's style.
Rami actually showed up for this recording or at least audible moments of Keys would suggest that's the case.
Just getting my first listen in at this time and in the middle of Beyond Me. This sounds like the best of the 70s Yacht Rock stuff. Amazing track as is the title track. While the last one was them pushing in different directions to experiment, this is the one that musically for me so far feels like them doing entirely new things they haven't done before.
Okay, I won’t just come in here and drop that. Here were my thoughts to someone not here earlier:
You’ll cry some… There’s some good stuff on there, and it definitely comes from a real place rather than ‘an idea’. One that many of us sadly can all relate to.
I think Dave played it all, I could not hear anyone else’s style in any of it. I don’t think he’d ever say it he did and just credits band. If he did, who was even going to say no?
Minor complaint, it is brickwalled sound wise so there are songs that really could have definitely used some breathing room. I blame Greg Kurstin.
I also think that it might be the final record that closes the book, not on a Medicine At Midnight. Dave played the first one. Dave plays the last one.
People hear stuff differently but it really surprises me that you don't think you hear the rest of the band. I hear Nate and Shifty (and even Rami, not great at telling Pat's guitar from Dave's) all over it, including in some backing vocals.
Some very tasty TINLTL style basslines and stuff like solo-y outro in Under You just is such Chris's style
@Tarquin I'd blame Randy Merrill for the mastering seeing as it's his job rather than Greg. It's funny though as he mastered the M@M which to me seemed to be well balanced. My friend thinks it's deliberate that the mastering is so harsh to mirror feelings of grief in places. Not sure I agree that the guys are the sort of band to do that sort of thing artistically. I could imagine more pretentious bands doing it
Not the first time there’s been interesting choices made in the mix/master stages. Remember One by One?
This album is so full of grief, sadness and loss that I think going on a world tour to support this is a weird choice.
I think it’s a fantastic album, the first rock album in ages that actually has a feeling and makes the listener feel it.
I would love to see them play but to me the release seems to be in a completely different universe than the feel good rock n roll party that the FF show is.
One by One mastering is very much a product (casualty) of the Loudness War though.
It's a different Foo from what came before for sure. I feel like a lot of music born from sadness resonates with people and is cathartic for performer and listener. So I can understand the world tour and playing these songs is going to be part of the healing process for them and us. I'd not be surprised if after this touring cycle we don't hear these tracks much if at all.
Spike Stent mixed the album too, and he's not exactly considered an out-of-demand mixer in the industry. The band probably has everything at their disposal in terms of recording capabilities too.
I've sat in front of a DAW plenty of times in my life, and I realize recording instruments doesn't always fall into one box or another. You could have the most pristine drum parts, recorded at the correct amount of feet from the correct mics, and they're not necessarily going to fit with the other instruments that go on top of them once those are recorded. Hence where compressors, reverb, and other things come in, so they all make sense as a whole.
I don't know if that was the case here. But at the end of the day, there's millions of decisions that go into writing and recording. All you can do is just coast with the process and do the best you can to come up with something listenable. As with the other albums, they succeeded at that goal here.
Love the album but I agree with you two on this. I crave the crispness of how the instruments (especially guitars) sounded on Wasting Light. I know it was on tape.
I just prefer a Butch Vig type sound to the recent DK stuff of the last 2 records.
This probably has been recorded in multiple locations and patched together as it progressed - we already know there's drum recordings from his home studio (w/ the shitty drum kit mentioned in the Preparing Music for Concerts thing). This is a very common practise nowadays.
I'm sure the harsh mastering and the mix is meant to cause a bit of an unease. It's a statement, and I think it really works. This album is meant to make the listener feel it, IMO the sound complements the songs really well.
I hear Nate here and there but other than that, I think it could be all DG - not counting the few orchestral / synth bits which are probably Greg.
I feel like it's the whole band it just feels more like Dave because a lot of it is so personal to him. It's him drumming, singing and strumming and then the other guys are there too.
I feel like it’s part eulogy and part memento mori in equal measure. I appreciate the earnest vulnerability of it, hard to hand that over to share with the world
I ordered a tee with my record and gotta admit I’m a bit disappointed in the quality - the print is defo gonna come off after a few washes - for the cost I sort of expected more
I remember late in the WL era (when I started taking merch collecting semi-seriously) when the quality of the women's tees was embarrassing. Too small, too thin, easily misshapen, and would shrink further if the water was even remotely tepid (and they also took a while to figure out that boobs and hips exist). With orders nowadays, I rarely need to worry that i'll order the wrong size.
Comments
Jackpot! ... went to pick up the cd today, and found out there is also a new Rancid album out today too!
So had my first fully conscious listen and have to say it's either these headphones or it's mastering is fucking awful.
Not sure how I feel about it yet. Didn't feel like Foo Fighters as we've known them before past the first two or 3 tracks. Definitely feels like it's an album about Taylor and then Virginia pretty much 50/50 but the tracks about her are more about death being inevitable and the ones about Taylor being more about grief and fragility of mortality. Or at least that's how I interpreted it upon this first listen. It's fucking raw and Rest sounds like it was sung with real emotion.
Dave's drumming seemed to be almost understated with the exception of a few tracks where it felt like it was Dave doing a tribute to Taylor's style.
Rami actually showed up for this recording or at least audible moments of Keys would suggest that's the case.
Just getting my first listen in at this time and in the middle of Beyond Me. This sounds like the best of the 70s Yacht Rock stuff. Amazing track as is the title track. While the last one was them pushing in different directions to experiment, this is the one that musically for me so far feels like them doing entirely new things they haven't done before.
Hard agree. The mastering just ain't it.
There are a few songs that absolutely needed some headroom to breathe, but can’t through a brickwall.
Although that last clipping ass saturation through Dave ‘GOODBYE!’ at end of The Teacher worked to pretty good effect.
Okay, I won’t just come in here and drop that. Here were my thoughts to someone not here earlier:
You’ll cry some… There’s some good stuff on there, and it definitely comes from a real place rather than ‘an idea’. One that many of us sadly can all relate to.
I think Dave played it all, I could not hear anyone else’s style in any of it. I don’t think he’d ever say it he did and just credits band. If he did, who was even going to say no?
Minor complaint, it is brickwalled sound wise so there are songs that really could have definitely used some breathing room. I blame Greg Kurstin.
I also think that it might be the final record that closes the book, not on a Medicine At Midnight. Dave played the first one. Dave plays the last one.
The album closer is perfect. Closes the book.
Right. Come and get me, Jill!
People hear stuff differently but it really surprises me that you don't think you hear the rest of the band. I hear Nate and Shifty (and even Rami, not great at telling Pat's guitar from Dave's) all over it, including in some backing vocals.
Some very tasty TINLTL style basslines and stuff like solo-y outro in Under You just is such Chris's style
@Tarquin I'd blame Randy Merrill for the mastering seeing as it's his job rather than Greg. It's funny though as he mastered the M@M which to me seemed to be well balanced. My friend thinks it's deliberate that the mastering is so harsh to mirror feelings of grief in places. Not sure I agree that the guys are the sort of band to do that sort of thing artistically. I could imagine more pretentious bands doing it
Not the first time there’s been interesting choices made in the mix/master stages. Remember One by One?
This album is so full of grief, sadness and loss that I think going on a world tour to support this is a weird choice.
I think it’s a fantastic album, the first rock album in ages that actually has a feeling and makes the listener feel it.
I would love to see them play but to me the release seems to be in a completely different universe than the feel good rock n roll party that the FF show is.
One by One mastering is very much a product (casualty) of the Loudness War though.
It's a different Foo from what came before for sure. I feel like a lot of music born from sadness resonates with people and is cathartic for performer and listener. So I can understand the world tour and playing these songs is going to be part of the healing process for them and us. I'd not be surprised if after this touring cycle we don't hear these tracks much if at all.
One by One had a lot of issues in its production, I love the album nevertheless.
IMO their best work is derived from facing something new.
S/T was the obvious slate cleaner
TCATS was the Kurt and divorce album
TINTL was the three-piece new drummer no record label don’t care album (my favorite)
1X1 was the splitting up album.
Since then they gradually got more comfortable and at the same time their music gradually got less interesting (to me).
This time it’s almost unimaginable what DG must have been going through while making the album. I think it’s his best one since TINTL.
Spike Stent mixed the album too, and he's not exactly considered an out-of-demand mixer in the industry. The band probably has everything at their disposal in terms of recording capabilities too.
I've sat in front of a DAW plenty of times in my life, and I realize recording instruments doesn't always fall into one box or another. You could have the most pristine drum parts, recorded at the correct amount of feet from the correct mics, and they're not necessarily going to fit with the other instruments that go on top of them once those are recorded. Hence where compressors, reverb, and other things come in, so they all make sense as a whole.
I don't know if that was the case here. But at the end of the day, there's millions of decisions that go into writing and recording. All you can do is just coast with the process and do the best you can to come up with something listenable. As with the other albums, they succeeded at that goal here.
Love the album but I agree with you two on this. I crave the crispness of how the instruments (especially guitars) sounded on Wasting Light. I know it was on tape.
I just prefer a Butch Vig type sound to the recent DK stuff of the last 2 records.
My bet is that this album is mostly DG.
This probably has been recorded in multiple locations and patched together as it progressed - we already know there's drum recordings from his home studio (w/ the shitty drum kit mentioned in the Preparing Music for Concerts thing). This is a very common practise nowadays.
I'm sure the harsh mastering and the mix is meant to cause a bit of an unease. It's a statement, and I think it really works. This album is meant to make the listener feel it, IMO the sound complements the songs really well.
I hear Nate here and there but other than that, I think it could be all DG - not counting the few orchestral / synth bits which are probably Greg.
It feels like Shifty in the guitar solo during Beyond Me. I'm not massively good at working it out though.
Just had another listen. I can really feel the emotion. The sense of melancholy is like nothing I've ever heard on a Foos album.
I feel like it's the whole band it just feels more like Dave because a lot of it is so personal to him. It's him drumming, singing and strumming and then the other guys are there too.
i knew this album would be a grower for me.
....I'm falling madly in love with it. 😳
Yeah I sorta get that.
This has such sadness and melancholy I have never heard on a rock album before.
I am with you on this…. I think it’s a stunning piece of work.
I feel like it’s part eulogy and part memento mori in equal measure. I appreciate the earnest vulnerability of it, hard to hand that over to share with the world
polar opposite to your first reactions to Medicine At Midnight 👍
That is still a generally terrible album. Complete redemption with this one.
Same!
I ordered a tee with my record and gotta admit I’m a bit disappointed in the quality - the print is defo gonna come off after a few washes - for the cost I sort of expected more
Possibly a Top 3 Foo album for me already
merch quality has been terrible of recent years
I remember late in the WL era (when I started taking merch collecting semi-seriously) when the quality of the women's tees was embarrassing. Too small, too thin, easily misshapen, and would shrink further if the water was even remotely tepid (and they also took a while to figure out that boobs and hips exist). With orders nowadays, I rarely need to worry that i'll order the wrong size.
deffo - I’ve got a tee from 1x1 tour that I still wear sometimes - it’s a bit worn, sure but the garment quality is still ace!
Maybe it’s the UK shop…