Big riffs battle with the kind of nagging singalong choruses the band have avoided over the years, a combination that makes Medicine at Midnight rush by with the intoxication of a good night out. Dance-rock isn't necessarily the height of exploration - the Rolling Stones cut disco the second they could back in the 1970s - but Foo Fighters have adhered to rock & roll basics for so long, the shift in rhythms seems nearly as giddy as the group's unexpected celebration of the power of the hook. It also functions as an acknowledgment of an open secret within the band's catalog: for all their attributes, the Foos have rarely been 'fun.' Foo Fighters fix that deficit by diving head on into disco and dance, the syncopations and polyrhythms so dominating Medicine at Midnight that the four-on-the-floor rock & roll ravers almost seem diminished in comparison. They’re nothing if not true to themselves the rest just seems to follow.Right before its release in early 2021, Dave Grohl called Medicine at Midnight the Foo Fighters' 'Saturday Night party album' - a self-evaluation that turns out to be pretty accurate. It’s no longer necessary to strap yourself in to keep pace with them, but there’s enough strum und drang peeking around the edges for those who want to hark back in time for that kind of freewheeling hybrid guitar music. Isolation isn’t a Joy Division cover, preferring instead to be a strange mix of rousing and disorientating instead. The return of John ‘Speedo’ Reis with The Night Marchers last year shared that common trait, so perhaps this is just what happens when bluesmen who understand punk rock grow older and wiser. What they do lack is the low-end rumble and foul-mouthed charm that Spencer is capable of howling out when the mood takes him. Instead, each number is breezed through with laconic charm they’re still, in essence, singing the blues, but wear its tell-tale signs like a well-fitting curse. That’s not to say that Midnight Soul Serenade sounds phoned in, though. The Pill barely registers a pulse, but carries enough ominous atmospherics under a squealing guitar line to sound like the opening number of a well-thumbed pulp fiction pot boiler turned into a musical. Midnight Soul Serenade continues Spencer’s ever-present trend of storytelling and effortlessly switching from upbeat moments that propel themselves with their own momentum to quieter, more introspective numbers where the vocals almost become a voiceover. Spencer’s collaboration with New York alt-rock veteran Matt Verta-Ray was always destined to be a slightly different beast, but still one that retains enough of his hangdog charm and swagger to delight critics and his pre-existing fanbase.

With Heavy Trash now on their third album, it can no longer be considered a side project. As the name suggests, their music was frequently loud, bombastic and loose limbed, as well as having the sense of adventure to strip to the bone and put themselves back together again, most notably with their Acme Plus remix album. The point at which Jon Spencer truly crafted his own identity was with his Blues Explosion band.

Midnight soul night moods cover