Dave Grohl has said he wanted to make “the biggest-sounding Foo Fighters record ever” when the band assembled at EastWest Studios in Hollywood to begin work on their ninth LP—just a block down Sunset Boulevard, as it turned out, from where Queens of the Stone Age were holed up to record their latest with producer Mark Ronson. That coincidence actually goes a long way toward pinning down Concrete and Gold; Grohl recruited pop producer Greg Kurstin, known for his work with Adele, Sia, The Shins, Foster the People and many more, to chase the Wagnerian dragon he had in mind and, in large measure, he found the fusion of heavy rock and Beatles-style pop he was going for. At times, it’s a bit of a jarring marriage, with the anthemic single “Run” awash in towering waves of guitars and Grohl’s voice squeezed through all manner of swirling Leslie effects and distorted compression. “Dirty Water,” a bouncy, sweet-sounding pop excursion that turns hard-edged about halfway through, is another head-scratcher, but like the rest of the album, it demonstrates the command of melody and artful key changes that Kurstin brings to the process, and which Grohl has grown into over the years as a songwriter with real gifts. The best of both worlds comes together on songs like “Arrows,” a dark, hypnotic and slow-building ode to a mysterious femme fatale, and “Make It Right,” a riff-heavy, psychedelic cut-time workout (with very nearly Bonham-esque drum work by Taylor Hawkins) that pivots on the fabulously inane chorus of “Hop on the train to nowhere baby, don’t you wanna hitch a ride?” As ponderous and silly as that sounds, it’s definitely a ride worth taking.