Album Reviews

Foo Fighters

``Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace"

SonyBMG

Foo Fighters are back with their long-awaited album ``Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace." Perhaps eager to prove that their best work is yet to come, Foo Fighters are coming out fighting with a solid album. The first track ``The Pretender" immediately grabs listeners by the ears and keeps them glued until the last notes of the final track fade.

Foo Fighters have always been associated with an alternative-pop-rock sound, but this album certainly has a more classic rock sound. The melancholic ``Come Alive" stands out, along with acoustic tracks such as ``Stranger Things Have Happened" and ``Let it Die."

-Cathy Rose A. Garcia

Sean Kingston

`Sean Kingston'

Miami-born and Jamaica-bred rapper Sean Kingston is still baby-faced, but he hits the world with his second single, ``Beautiful Girls.''

This album presents a wide variety of styles of songs, which are tinged with new attempts to mix established pop numbers with Jamaican vibes and rapping.

Tracks like "Me Love," a sampling version of the reggae tunes of Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er" and ``Got No Shorty'' using an old pop, ``Just A Gigolo'' and ``I Can Feel It'' are very catchy enough to lingering after you hear them.

-Chung Ah-young

Barry Manilow

`The Greatest Songs of The Seventies'

Standard and adult contemporary pop singer Barry Manilow's assorted collection of classic pops from 1970s has been released to mark the 34th anniversary of his debut in 1973.

Following the recent retrospective recordings of the best songs from the fifties and sixties, the platinum hits, which arouse nostalgia of the 1970s pop scene will be presented through this album.

He has nicely recorded some classics done in his own way, like his take on Simon & Garfunkel's ``Bridge Over Troubled Water,'' a soulful remake of The Carpenters classic (They Long To Be)`` Close To You'' and Barbara Streisand's ``The Way We Were.''