Foo Fighters - 'One By One' (RCA)
4/5
By: Toby L
The consistent leaders of commercial-rock, Foo Fighters appear to have become more contemplative and, well, focussed on latest-LP 'One By One' - their fourth album to date, and a near-riotous coalition of textured guitar-patterns, melodious song-crafting and a record featuring Queen member Brian May as a special guest. Honest.
And, who'd have thought it? Near-death experiences for drummer Taylor Hawkins aside, the band's past as enjoyable, if predictable, axe-wielders may have earned them millions of sales, sell-out arena dates, headline-festival appearances and frontman Dave Grohl's own high-profile excursions into drumming for Queens of The Stone Age and messy court-appearances to protect the interests of his former role in Nirvana, but an album this good amidst it all..?
Maybe it isn't that much of a shock; always ones to manoeuvre a killer-riff and over-driving choruses, their 'One By One' is the fruition of a vacuous series of nu-metal ensembles getting their comeuppance and being forced from the spotlight and shoved off the side of the stage. Just listen to that opener, too - the pummelling two-chord shudder of 'All My Life', supplemented exquisitely by a barrage of feel-good, college-shaking pleasers such as 'Low', dreamy 'Have It All' and dizzy 'Times Like These' - all so dynamically palpitating with time-changes and wistful hooks that the muso and fan would be righteously delighted alike.
For the romantic amongst us, it even tones itself down for a necessary contrast, the self-fulfilling 'Disenchanted Lullaby' and stripped-bare intimacy of 'Tired Of You' - complete with a zealously understated, moody performance from May on guitar - certainly ensuring that the full-steam-ahead pulverisers 'Burn Away' and 'Lonely As You' maintain a gruelling, slicing edge.
Culminating within a guise that's suitably epic, as the six-strings churn and the drums pummel, Grohl bellows in an impassioned growl, 'I will come back.' Fittingly, after reaching peaks this heady and towering, it's difficult not to believe his cries; let's just hope it's in as triumphant a manner as this.
Artists in this article: Foo Fighters
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