HOUSE 77 Xmas EDITION

So I bought the new Foo Fighters and Coldplay, and here are my opinions of them both.

First the Foo Fighters! I really enjoy the new album. It has some really killer tracks on it, the title track being one of them. I knew that Best of You was amazing a month ago, I still stand by that. The rest of the heavy side of the album is recognizably Foo Fighters, and definitely has some highlights. But in all truth, it's not as mind-blowing as I thought it might be. Funnily enough, when I first started listening to the soft side, I thought it was awful, but then I listened more closely and really discovered how awesome it is.

What makes the whole album as a whole so fantastic IS the soft side of the album. The songs Over and Out, On the Mend, and Another Round are really awesome tracks. The opener and closer of that 'side' of the album - Still and Razor - are freaking fantastic. Still has got a sort of synthesized sound I've never heard from the Foos before. And Razor has got some of the most amazing acoustic work ever, it's just plain beautiful. He nailed the two on the head perfectly. So all in all, a really fantastic album. No Color and the Shape, but better than the past couple albums for sure. I recommend you get it if you can!

Funnily enough though, I couldn't copy it to my iPod because of the damn copyright protection, which pissed me off to no end because I know I'll listen to this in the car or with the Pod whilst walkin around. So the solution? Uninstall the driver device that makes the copy protection work on the computer and press shift when the CD pops in. Bingo, it now works without any problems, what a joke.

Anyway, Coldplay. Parachutes will never be beaten. I think that is a rule of physics, or on the periodic table of elements...it just cannot be topped by Coldplay. Accept that fact, and you will totally enjoy X&Y. I can't recall where I read it, but someone described it as being a more "sonic" album, which is very true. It seems to me to have less of the acoustic lil ditties - which is both good and bad. They've lost their folksie and rougher songs like Shiver and Spies, but made more stuff like High Speed and Clocks. So I am not really sure what I think. My four favourite Coldplay songs are represented in those titles, and they are split even.

On the new album, songs like Square One, Talk, White Shadows, X&Y, and Low just give me shivers listening to them because of the awesome atmosphere they create. The balads, like Fix You and What If, are also really good. Actually Fix You is a real shocker, it starts out with an organ of all instruments, and seems to be really, really slow and dull. But then about 2/3rds of the way through the song, an AWESOME guitar riff kicks in and the song explodes into something amazing, I am really glad I took the time to try and enjoy it all instead of being an idiot and skipping it.

Anyway, I'd argue this album is just as good as A Rush of Blood to the Head, maybe even better because I feel the album is much more consistently good. However, it doesn't have as many GREAT songs like the past albums. This is it's one weakness...lots of good songs, not so many great ones. But I still love it.

So there you have it everyone, my opinions of my two most recently purchased albums. What will I review next time? Probably Sam Roberts if he ever decides to release the damned thing. And then Depeche Mode later on. Deftones will be around there somewhere too. What an awesome year for music.