It may just be me, but I cannot seem to get on with the double album as a musical concept.......although I own many, and in some cases even re-bought on CD double albums I didn't particularly care for on vinyl!, they all seem to be blighted by the fact that they could have been trimmed down to one exceptional single album instead of the overly long double set of average content that we inevitably end up with. I call this the "double album syndrome" and there are many afflicted albums that suit this description and I'm not talking about greatest hits collections of course, just albums of new material.

This brings us nicely to the Foo Fighters latest release. Dave Grohl may have split this material over two discs to target more specifically the schizophrenic demographic of the Foo Fighters current fanbase, being split between people brought in by the MTV friendly side of "One By One" and "There Is Nothing Left To Lose" and the more indie rock aesthetic of the earlier material. The end result is sadly the same as the "double album syndrome" I mentioned earlier. There's too much disparate material and its too much like hard work to play these discs back to back. If I didn't happen to be reviewing this pair of discs I would probably have done so just the once.

Don't get me wrong these aren't bad songs and if disc 1 had been released in isolation it would have been another worthy Foo Fighters album. Despite it being billed as the "loud" record of the set it shares its overall feel with the last two Foos albums containing, as it does, the usual mix of hook laden rock, "In Your Honour" kicks things off with some aggressive drumming and howling, whilst "The Last Song" reminds me of "Breakout", and softer edged tunes such as "Resolve" for example.

Personally I think disc 2 should have been released as a Dave Grohl solo project as it's clear its been separated out from disc 1 due to the amount of vocal and musical collaboration involved, and therefore surely fulfils the same criteria applied to the Probot project last year albeit at the opposite end of the musical spectrum!!.

I'm sure this set has been released with the best of intentions, after all its being retailed at a standard single CD price point, so clearly money isn't the motivation, but I do think that in the main fans will see disc 1 as the "proper" Foo Fighters album and disc 2 will be played by people curious to hear how Dave Grohl and Norah Jones sound together, jazz...hmm...nice, and then not played again. This indeed would be a shame because if one or two of the better tunes from this disc ,"Still" would have been a perfect album opener, had been incorporated into an amalgamated single disc release there might have been a more well rounded album as a result.

Let us know your views on 'In Your Honour'

Track List

Disc 1
In Your Honor
No Way Back
Best of You
DOA
Hell
The Last Song
Free Me
Resolve
The Deepest Blues Are Black
End Over End
The Sign

Disc 2
Still
What If I Do?
Miracle
Another Round
Friend of a Friend
Over and Out
On the Mend
Virginia Moon
Cold Day in the Sun
Razor

Line Up

Dave Grohl- Guitar/Vocals
Nate Mandel- Bass
Taylor Hawkins- Drums
Chris Shiflett- Guitar