After an extended hiatus that included side-project diversions by all members of the band (most notably in Grohl’s Them Crooked Vultures) everyone’s favourite soft rocking hard rockers Foo Fighters return for World Domination with seventh album Wasting Light. Time spent away in side-projects can sometimes spread artists too thin and water down their output, but it’s as if Wasting Light is a perfect culmination of everything they’ve ever done; from Grohl’s bad-arse metal diversions in Probot to guitarist Chris Shiflett’s melodic country leanings with The Dead Peasants.
Moving towards the hard rock end of the spectrum and away from the MOR leanings of previous album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, they’ve written some fantastic songs and kept it all wrapped up in The Colour And The Shape‘s pop nous. It also marks the full time return of Nirvana / Foo Fighters Mark I / The Germs guitarist Pat Smear, who adds an integral layer of fuzz and holds the band back from dipping too much into Wheels territory.
Opener Bridge Burning sets the tone for the album in a maelstrom of discordant guitars, driving drums and the patented Grohl scream of “These are my famous last worrrroooowwwds”, already apologising for Wheels and declaring arse-kicking season open. First single Rope continues that arse-kickery, revolving around a delicious riff and some delightful Taylor/Dave harmonising, as well as the greatest “Yowww!” aside since James Brown did the splits and felt nice.
Dear Rosemary ‘s grand intro morphs into a descending riff that is borderline cliché, saved only by some rebounding counterpoint guitars and a late vocal appearance of Husker Du/Sugar legend Bob Mould. White Limo‘s distorted vocal resembles first album’s Weenie Beenie and is perhaps Grohl’s most all-out ’80s metal (lmI) moment since Probot. Arlandria is epic Foo-by-numbers, and sees Grohl looking back on his time spent in the sweet Virginian suburb. These Days resembles Times Like These in more than title for its heartfelt simplicity and is sure to be an emotional live staple for years.
Back And Forth , however, is college radio rock delivered as tough and massively as the rest of the album, and thus a fairly pedestrian song is lifted with merely energy, passion and a $100,000 mastering budget. A Matter Of Time and Miss The Misery are both solid, bombastic and absolutely Foo Fighters 101: muscular and rifftastic verses with the Big, Dumb, Simple chorus. I Should Have Known is the well documented almost-Nirvana reunion with Krist Novoselic adding bass, but comes off more like a late-period Guns N’ Roses epic and sounds all the better for it. Walk ends the album on another high and reminds of a little noted point: for all that the Foo Fighters stand for – and I’mma let you finish – but Grohl is one of rock’s all-time greatest singers.
As expected, there’s enough challenging riffery and key changes to initially excite and compel the listener, but it eventually all comes back to the big chorus, purpose built by Nevermind producer Butch Vig for stadium singalongs. Admittedly it’d be nice to shake off some of the bogan fans (and result in us all getting a better seat at Rod Laver) but Foo Fighters are just too rocking, too melodic and too mildly threatening to ever not be blasting out of a tradie’s radio.
The album even comes with a piece of the original master tape, most likely limited to the first 900,000 copies. Funny; but mine looks more like it was cut from the last Bon Jovi album.
