as well. On July 30, 2014, Vig revealed that the band had finished recording and mixing the new album and that it was slated to be released a month after the Sonic Highways TV series. In an August 2014 press release, Grohl spoke about the album, saying: "This album is instantly recognizable as a Foo Fighters record, but there's something deeper and more musical to it. I think that these cities and these people influenced us to stretch out and explore new territory, without losing our ‘sound’." Packaging The album artwork by Stephan Martiniere has a cityscape amalgamating landmarks of every town used for production – Seattle's Space Needle, the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles – and a recurring motif of the number eight, marking both the Foo Fighters' eighth album and infinity (∞). The vinyl pressings of the album are packaged in nine different covers, depicting each of the eight cities and the "Forever" building shaped like the infinity symbol. Most retailers would not guarantee which cover the purchaser would receive, and album art is "randomly selected" for orders from the band's official website. Promotion On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to the Foo Fighters Facebook page with several master tapes, some labeled "LP 8". On May 15, 2014, it was announced that the band's eighth album would be released in November 2014 and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Dave Grohl entitled Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways. On August 11, 2014, it was announced that the album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. Critical reception At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 68, based on 31 reviews indicating "generally favorable reviews". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic says the album "celebrates not the coiled fury of underground rock exploding into the mainstream, the way the '90s-happy Wasting Light did, but rather the classic rock that unites the U.S. from coast to coast." Philip Cosores at Consequence of Sound stated "the album plays out more like a bonus feature, something that can enhance the series’ enjoyment or simply further inform the experience". Patrick Doyle from Rolling Stone noted that some of the album's songs are among "the band's most ambitious moments yet". Stuart Berman of Pitchfork