It’s been 20 years since Dave Grohl crawled into a Seattle basement and came back up a few weeks later with a demo tape labeled Foo Fighters. Now, after a few Grammy awards and world tours, the Foo Fighters have released their eighth studio album, Sonic Highways, to commemorate their anniversary. The new album presents a variety of tracks that deviate from the norm the band has built throughout the years, but still stays close enough to home to keep old fans enticed.

The Foo Fighters are known for being a straight rock and roll band, no twang or pop, just flying guitars and powerful crescendos. However, Sonic Highways puts an interesting turn on this tried-and-true system by having the entire album revolve around a central idea: a song reflects the environment where it was made. To test out this theory, the Foo Fighters went on a cross country trip, going from city to city across America to record each of the eight songs on the album in eight different cities, hoping to embody a little bit of the sound and history of each town in its song.

This idea for musical inspiration sounds a bit gimmicky, but the Foo Fighters make it work. However, the cities influence comes less in the melodies and more in the lyrics of each song. “Congregation”, a song on the album, talks about how people need “blind faith” yet “no false hope” to succeed in the music monster that has become Nashville. The story of guitar legend Buddy Guy is retold in “Something from Nothing,” the single recorded in Chicago. Each song tells a story about each city that natives will be sure to enjoy.

However, though the natives of each city will probably enjoy their respective song, they also will probably be the only ones who understand what Grohl is even talking about. The lyrics for each song can be extremely cryptic at times, which Grohl has partly attributed to that parts of the songs are quotes from interviews with famous musicians from each of the eight cities, made for a documentary series of the same name as the album that retells the making of Sonic Highways.

Example: “A button on a string/And I heard everything” and “Looking for a dime/Found a quarter.” Have any idea what either of those lines from “Something from nothing” mean? For a while I didn’t either. However, after watching the Sonic Highways documentary episode about Chicago, it became apparent that the first line is about Buddy Guy’s experience playing with makeshift instruments and the second about how he found more in Chicago than he hoped. They’re both great parts of the song that can be put up to interpretation but it feels sad that watching the TV show is almost necessary to understand what the heck Dave Grohl is actually saying.

The sound of the album for the most part sticks to what made the Foo Fighters famous in the first place, with rocking guitars and memorable moments that listeners will look back on with a smile. From guest guitarist Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band’s amazing guitar solo in “Congregation” to the inclusion of New Orleans‘ Preservation Hall Jazz Band on “In the clear,” the track from the same town, Sonic Highways is filled with good songs with great moments mixed in.

Sonic Highways does take a turn for the strange in the final two tracks in a good way, venturing into grounds that the band normally never goes to. The final songs, “Subterannean” and “I am a river,” create an interesting contrast too the rest of the album’s rock anthems and crescendos with slow repeating melodies that almost have a wishful, hopeful tone. This change of pace is definitely weird, but still a great way to end an overall great album.

Despite a handful of confusing lyrics, Sonic Highways still shine as a great reminder of how the Foo Fighters have survived for 20 years.