Alt-folk visionary Sufjan Stevens famously failed in his attempt to record an album about every American state. Foo Fighters’ eighth album, accompanied by an HBO documentary, achieves its rather more modest ambition: eight songs inspired by and recorded in eight US cities. Not much musical influence seems to have rubbed off along the way: at a stretch, there’s a faintly Nashville-derived twang to the opening riff of Congregation. Overall, this is a record of familiar virtues and failings: robust, full-throttle pop-rock, rather overstuffed with identikit stadium anthems, but largely redeemed by the force of Dave Grohl’s personality.
