Foo Fighters: Wasting Light
10 Apr 2011
Foo Fighters
Wasting Light
(Roswell/RCA)
Dave Grohl, right, who is Foo Fighters, is in a enviable position. His band are successful stadium rockers who, while lacing their rock schtick with rare elements of grace and intelligence, still get thousands of people to bounce up and down at the same time, as we will see this summer at T in the Park. But despite the band’s success, Grohl clearly felt something had to change.
For this record he brought his band and guests – such as Bob Mould (of Husker Du and Sugar fame), old Nirvana pal Krist Novoselic and now full-time member Pat Smear – back to his garage and recorded the whole album there, using only analogue equipment. The result is therefore both warm and spiky, albeit with a dullard snare sound.
Opener Bridge Burning, a terrific middlebrow rock song (that’s a compliment), and single Rope chug along very efficiently. Dear Rosemary, the duet with Mould, never quite takes off but White Limo is excellent, taking a little frenetic Queens Of The Stone Age and driving it a long way. Meanwhile, Arlandria is the type of melodic, complex rock ballad Boston would have sold their plectrums to write (again, a compliment).
The best song comes near the end with the hyper-ventilating ballad, replete with strings, called I Should Have Known. It appears to be a lament for a friend who has killed himself, and obviously brings to mind the death of Kurt Cobain. Grohl sings the song as if his life depends on it and, at the climax, as if his heart is bursting through his chest.
This is the band’s seventh album, and although none of their platters is an out-and-out classic – they range from average to very good – Grohl has mastered the art of writing pop-rock screamers that, at their best, get the heart racing as well as the head banging. The Colour And The Shape (1997) is probably Grohl’s best album and contains his finest song, Everlong. Wasting Light does not challenge that milestone in either riffage or songwriting chops. But this is an eminently solid album and it will sound great live – and that’s where Grohl’s charm and passion are perhaps best displayed
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