Foo Fighters // First Listen

Foo Fighters

‘Untitled’

(RCA)

Welcome back Dave Grohl. Four long years have passed since the Foo Fighters last bored a hole in the Landscape Of Rock. So what’s changed? Dave and the gang aren’t giving much away, (we don’t even know the title), but online snippets and instrumentals have already sent fans giddy with excitement. As anticipation builds ahead of their big comeback, Ben Homewood lets the Foo Fighters give his ears a bashing, 2011 style.

‘Bridge Is Burning’

Here goes. A signature Foos riff is headbutted by a drum roll so big it deserves its own area code, before Dave Grohl screams, “These are my famous last words.” It has taken all of thirty seconds for Foo Fighters to assert their authority; this track is dripping with razor-sharp guitars, with Dave singing his way through a desolate lyrical setting. The talk is of gathering and scattering ashes, but this song barely allows pause for breath, let alone lyrical analysis and its four minutes fly by.

‘Rope’

Starting with a timid dose of reverb, this is an altogether poppier affair. Grohl leaves his growl at home, excluding a cursory “Yeah!” or two, opting instead for intricate couplets “Give me some rope I’m coming loose/I’m hanging on you.” Guitars clamber mercilessly on top of one another before the band hit autopilot and break into a basement jam topped off with a solo that sounds like it’s being played atop a table in a high school battle of the bands – loud, out of control and crammed with youthful abandon.

‘Dear Rosemary’

This is romantic. “Rosemary you’re part of me/You are, you are, you are,” goes the chorus, and this is as close as the frontman will get to, dare we say it, a croon. Affecting sentiment is soon shaped into a military style call and response scenario, though to call it a lament would be pushing the boundaries of the English language. Whoever Rosemary is, Dave soon tires of her, over a breakdown of bass and drums his parting shot is, “Dear Rosemary, get away, get away from me.” Ooh er.

‘White Limo’

Now things get interesting. The lyrics are almost totally indecipherable (all we can deduce is that someone is going to “take a hit on the head.”) It’s as if he’s singing through the exhaust pipe of a car that’s on fire, briefly recalling Metallica and Caleb Followill’s distorted overtones on Kings Of Leon’s ‘My Party’. One of only two songs to clock in at under four minutes, this falls short of knocking us over, but not far.

‘Arlandria’

“Ain’t that the way it always starts,” begins Dave after an axe and drum combo that might as well be branded with a giant Foo Fighters logo. He’s right; this is the album at its most ‘Foo Fighters.’ It’s the first time we hear Dave sing (in the music teacher sense) on the album, and it nods heavily towards the band’s back-catalogue, so much so that we can almost hear his toothy grin as he sings “Oh God you gotta make it stop,” which it duly does after one final crescendo.

‘These Days’

Beginning with an intro of delicately picked guitar underneath a sweetly sung, yet scarily commanding vocal, this is verging on melancholic. Philosophical lyrics (“One of these days/the ground will drop out/from beneath your feet/and your heart will play its final beat”), paint a morbid picture before Dave restores the status quo, grizzling into the chorus like a bear with a sore head. That’s more like it.

‘Back And
Forth’

The introspection continues unabated, “Once upon a time I was somebody else/in another life I saw myself/way back when I was new,” sings Dave, and it sounds like we’re off on a trip down memory lane. Whatever the inspiration this is perhaps the most upbeat moment on the album. One stratospheric chorus and yet another face melting solo later, and we’re picking ourselves up gingerly, from the crumpled heap we just fell into.

‘A Matter Of Time’

Slipping down a gear, initially at least, this shares the loud, quiet, loud template made popular by, whisper it, Grohl’s previous band. Guitars simmer during yet more lyrical navel gazing in the verse, only for another pulsating test for the ear drums (we seem to be holding up well so far) to hit in the chorus. “It’s just a matter of time/ before…” leaving the line unfinished, this is where Dave Grohl Goes Cryptic (wouldn’t that make for a good game show? No? Fine.) We’ll settle for a spooky hint at the afterlife.

‘Miss The Misery’

Beginning with a squall of feedback that bizarrely recalls Oasis lads-at-closing-time classic ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out,’ this song plots a path through everything this band does best. Chant-along lyrics, bruising percussion and guitars that could saw your head clean off combine and leave us wondering whether Dave Grohl’s larynx will be able to see him through the final two tracks.

‘I Should Have Known’

Larynx safely intact, Dave sings a lovelorn vocal, “I shoulda known, lay your hands in mine/heal me one last time,” as strings ebb and flow. The music mirrors the atmosphere, trickling between the verses but, just as we’re fumbling in our pockets for a lighter to hold aloft, a mutant bassline rumbles and the growl is back. Tranquillity reigns supreme in the end and the strings return, swarming like fireflies to finish a beautiful song.

‘Walk’

A delicately constructed intro gives way to another extra large helping of that growl. He starts by calmly telling us he’s “learning to walk again” (didn’t he learn to fly once too?) before the song builds into a sky-high wall of pounding drums and guitars. “I never wanna die/I never wanna die/Forever, whatever/I never wanna leave,” Grohl is screaming now, his voice is imbued with vitality and urgent as ever. That wall of sound seemed insurmountable; the way his words rasped aggressively would have been a fitting way to sign off on record number seven. We should have known. There’s still room for the band to clobber us with one final stomp through the chorus and, when it finally lets up, expect to feel more than a little breathless.

Foo Fighters’ new album will be reviewed in the April issue of The Fly.