I had a few great introductions for this review :

intro n°1 : "There are bands that keep on disappointing you. And no matter how many times they disappoint you you keep on waiting for their next album, hoping that it will be better than all the things they did since Definitely Maybe."

intro n°2 : "There is a very small frontier between stoner and 80s hard-rock" 

intro n°3 : "Unbelievable choruses, lyrics that are not meant to be funny but are, sugar-coated background vocals, Taylor Hawkins behind the drums : this year's Foo Fighters are rated-G Queens of the Stone Age."   

Ahem Ahem. So they're back. Again. I remember when I was in high school, a couple of months after the death of Kurt Cobain, we were listening to the first Foo Fighters album, watching pictures of Dave Grohl with Winona Ryder. He was like God to us. I mean, Nirvana !! Winona Ryder !! But that was almost ten years ago. I heard that he is dating Christina Aguilera now. Maybe the quality of the albums just depends on the girl he's dating. One by One. Wonder if he's talking about girls.

Most of these songs are just downright unbelievable. I mean, the usual radio-friendly Foo Fighters song was not amazing but nice to listen to once or twice. In a car. The Foo Fighters are proud to introduce the most feared comeback of all : 80s hard-rock. All My Life, the first song and first single, sounds like a Queens of the Stone Age song and then the chorus comes in and you feel like you're listening to Poison. Arena rock. The second track, Low sounds even more like Queens of the Stone Age with its velvet lined "ooh ooh ooh"s. It's probably the best song on the album, but it has two flaws shared with all the songs on this album : it's too long and Taylor Hawkins is drumming. and there's stereo flanger in it. The third song on this album, Have It All, combines stoner riffs with a way too clean guitar sound. It's the kind of songs you expect from the Foo Fighters, lots of sugar in the chorus, Dave Grohl screaming at some point. It's unsurprisingly nice. Times like These is not that bad either. Disenchanted Lullaby is just awful. Tired of You sounds nice until Brian May (I'm not sure whether or not it's him but it sounds like him) vomits overdubs through his guitar. Halo is calibrated for the next teen movie, that's not bad, that's just not amazing. Lonely as You starts in a nice way. Really. It's great until the 33rd second. The dramatic 33rd second when the ska rhythm enters. You can hear Dave's trying to sound as cool as his buddies in Queens of the Stone Age. But he's in a band with pro musicians in an expensive studio. Not with rockers recording live. As a result he often falls on the wrong side of the line. And he should remember that he drummed in QOTSA. Overdrive is shitty. Burn Away still sounds better than Lenny Kravitz. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, here comes the epic, closing song : Come Back is 7 minutes 49 seconds long. I wondered if the song was a desperate trick to get Melissa Auf Der Maur back until i heard the chorus : "I would come back for you." Maybe it's about her. There's acoustic guitar, a solo and a stupid crescendo. The last minute is nice.

Dave Grohl was part of a band that was created out of hatred towards what the Foo Fighters sound like today : Californian 80s bands with curly hair. If you're nostalgic, listen to Nevermind. It's still better than this, even if you know it by heart.

-Vsevolod

/nov 1st 2002/