Robust rock’n’roll that’s happy to stay in its lane
‘Medicine at Midnight’ is hardly full of bops but it will slot into the Foo Fighters stadium setlist, says Alex Pollard. Plus releases by Black Country, New Road and The Staves
Foo Fighters – Medicine at Midnight
Foo Fighters have never claimed to be reinventing the wheel. Nirvana, Dave Grohl’s former band, already did that in the Nineties – so he’s spent the past 25 years hammering out what he readily admits is dad rock. “I think the reason why we’re still here is because we do disconnect ourselves from the popular stuff that’s
going on,” he says, and it’s hard to resent him for that. Medicine at Midnight, the six-piece’s 10th record, is a perfectly perfunctory addition to a canon of robust rock’n’roll.
Grohl describes Medicine at Midnight as a “party record”, which does make me wonder what sort of parties he throws. But while hardly full of bops, it would slot nicely into a stadium setlist. The crunchy riffs of opener “Making a Fire” morph into syncopated beats, claps, and chants of “nah nah nah” that is forgivably cheesy. On “Cloudspotter”, which has a funky edge and hair-rock chorus, the meaningless refrain “sweet, sweet guillotine queen” feels factory-designed for a mass shout-along, while the acoustic ballad “Waiting on a War” practically begs you to put a lighter in the air. That track has strings, a rousing melody, and a vaguely defiant message – it was inspired by the moment Grohl’s 11-year-old daughter turned to him and asked if there was going to be a war.
“Shame Shame” gets off to a promising start – a minimalist, staccato intro and a chorus that sounds a little like Sleater-Kinney – but by the time the 38th “shame” comes around, the whole thing is dragging itself along like a sulky toddler. You can tell by the “Ace of Spades” riff that “No Son of Mine” was written in tribute to Motörhead’s Lemmy. And yet the trouble with drawing such blatant comparison is that the Foo Fighters are not Motörhead, while Grohl certainly doesn’t have Lemmy’s growl or grit. Other tracks try for something a little daring, like the title track with its husky, sinister funk. Soon, though, it’s turned into Tenacious D, and by the end, muscle memory has kicked in and it’s classic rock again.
If Dave Grohl went around proclaiming godlike genius, Foo Fighters’ lack of sonic development might be irksome. But there is something admirable about the fact they stay so firmly planted in their lane. Medicine at Midnight is unlikely to win over many new fans, but it will make the existing ones happy. During a pandemic, anything that can do that is to be celebrated.
Black Country, New Road – For the First Time
From Shame to Squid, Black Midi to Idles, south London has recently proved to be a fertile breeding ground for young guitar bands. Black Country, New Road are the latest addition to that list, their rumbustious live performances (remember them?) at the Brixton Windmill ensuring they’ve built quite a name for themselves.
At just six tracks, their debut For the First Time initially looks too short to be a full album. But with most of those songs running between the five to eight-minute mark, the record has plenty of material to keep a listener engaged. Or at least, it should.
It just feels tedious and predictable. Portentous twangs of guitar? Tick. Shivery percussion? Tick. Screeches
of feedback? Tick. A frontman who delivers lyrics (rambling prose) in a croaky, squawking gasp that recalls Mark E Smith? Tick. It’s as if they had never listened to any bands besides The Fall and Gang of Four, which, of course, could also be said of BCNR’s south London peers.
If songs are to be as sprawling as these, the instrumentation should be both rousing and virtuosic. It is, mostly. The klezmer and eastern European influences, perhaps the result of saxophonist Lewis Evans’s work with Jewish folk groups, is the best thing about BCNR, but there’s not enough of it. Charlie Wayne’s accomplished drumming on opener “Instrumental” is obscured by an irritating guitar hook, while the frenetic “Opus” is a little overstated.
“Athens, France” borrows a line from Phoebe Bridgers’ superb single “Motion Sickness”, which seems off, given the track is about the American singer’s toxic relationship with Ryan Adams. “Sunglasses”, where Kanye West is defended in between narratives about Nutribullets and praise for single malt whisky, feels like a grasp at irony, or profundity, or both, but achieves neither. Don’t believe the hype. Roisin O’Connor
The Staves – Good Woman
If we learnt anything from HBO’s Bee-Gees documentary, it’s that you really can’t do much better than a sibling-sung harmony. In 2012, indie-folk sister trio Emily, Jessica, and Camilla Staveley-Taylor bolstered the case for DNA-driven vocals with their debut, Dead & Born & Grown, which seamlessly fit the postNoughties need for fresh-off-the-farm pastoral groups in the wake of genre leaders like Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes, and Bon Iver. Almost 10 years later, though Taylor Swift has the privilege to be a “woman of the woods” whenever she likes, general overexposure has made it so that little remains of the bucolic aesthetic.
Read more: The Staves – ‘They wanted us to be these sad, frail girls with long wavy hair’
The Staves recognise this change in scenery and have adapted accordingly on their wide-ranging third LP, Good Woman, which is overseen by decorated NPR-core producer John Congleton (Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, St Vincent) and aims to capture each sister in quarter-life moments like new motherhood, losing a parent, and ending long-term relationships, both romantic and professional. Imbuing Good Woman with little sonic textures like field recordings (“Careful, Kid”), delicate organ accents (“Trying”), and propulsive percussion (“Best Friend”), The Staves evolve past genre classification while still leaning into what they do best: pitch-perfect, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young-esque harmonies.
In essence, Good Woman is a thirtysomething reset, a look at three women processing the nature of femininity and a lot of personal change all at once. Though it could stand to sound more consistent
throughout (at times The Staves sound like they’re throwing that proverbial spaghetti against the wall), Good Woman successfully demonstrates that even through life’s lessons and uncomfortable liminal states, family is the most stabilising force.