In Your Honor is the fifth studio album by American band , released on June 14, 2005 by. It is a , with one disc containing heavy rock songs and a second disc with mellower songs. Frontman decided to do a diverse blend of songs as he felt that after ten years of existence, the band had to break new ground with their music. The album was recorded at a newly built studio in , and featured guests such as , and. The lyrics deal with both resonating and introspective themes, with a major influence from Grohl's involvement on the campaign trail with during the. It is the first album to feature keyboardist , although he would not join the band as full-time member until 2017. Reviews for In Your Honor were mostly positive, praising the composition and sound, although some critics found the album overlong and inconsistent. The album was also nominated for five , and topped the charts in five countries—including Australia—and reached the top five in five more, including number two in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In Your Honor also broke the band's consecutive streak of wins that began in 1999 with. After touring in support of , was uncertain on what to do next with the. He felt that rushing to do another record would not be creatively rewarding. Grohl considered a possible , and began writing acoustic songs, eventually amassing a full album's worth of songs. Development for In Your Honor took nine months with three and a half months installing equipment in the studio, and songs being written throughout 2004. I was afraid they were going to get stale. Forty tracks were recorded — fifteen of them acoustic — with half of them ending on the final track list. Raskulinecz mixed the rock songs, while mixed the stereo and 5. The electric album was done in segments by instrument, starting with the drums and guitars, then vocals, and finally bass. Mendel would write a on at home before showing it to Grohl and Raskulinecz. If you do the drums and then the guitars, you can fill the hole that's left with bass. And sometimes that hole wants a certain frequency that isn't traditional for bass, but you have to go with it, which is even more fun. With the rock record, we finally got the aggressive, anthemic thing down. With the acoustic album, it offers some kind of look into the future of things we're capable of doing and the direction we could move if we wanted to. You do something that you've never done, and it makes you feel like a bigger band. While preparing the acoustic album, Grohl decided that he would improve it with guest appearances, and made a list of musicians that he would like to work with, such as and. The guests that appeared on the record included , of fame, and of. And that's what we wanted to do with this album. Problems playing these files? I'm just a musician. I can play all these different instruments, I can write a bossa nova, I can write a thrash tune. And the songs were written to hold more orchestration. We've never had accordions and pump organs and cellos and. Much of the album's th
