Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways

Fun, lively, interesting, but also tends to lose focus at times.

Sonic Highways does dig deeper than a lot of other musician-centric documentaries do.

An eclectic and enthralling documentary travelogue that follows the band on a musical journey to explore the rich cultural heritage of eight iconic music meccas.

Previewing the songs may be enough to draw Foo Fighters fans. For everyone else, Mr. Grohl provides, through interviews, archival clips and his own narration, a musical and social history of the city that’s both surprisingly detailed and decidedly personal.

Whatever happens, this is an interesting series and a worthy endeavor that makes terrific use of archival footage in both of the first two hours.

The series is skillfully directed and packed with decades-spanning trivia, but it isn't the immersive expose it could be. [17 Oct 2014, p.62]

Grohl’s style as a director is much like his style as a conversationalist: highly earnest, highly caffeinated, and sometimes a tad on-the-nose. However, it’s his interest in the practical details of recording--from consoles and instruments to the masonry work in the studio walls--that most distinguishes him from his less technical fellow rockists.

The series sometimes meanders, but only because Grohl's goals are lofty.

The good news about Sonic Highways is that it doesn’t have enough time to bore us to tears.