by Oliver on June 23, 2023 in Album
„We are going to be a different band going forward“ said Dave Grohl after the decision that Foo Fighters to live on despite the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins. Actually sounds But Here We Are but so much – and above all: so good! – after the Foo Fighterslike no record by the band since 2011.
Of course, this is also to be understood relatively, because some jubilant Persians were apart from the perception that was loyal to the Nibelungs Sonic Highways as well as (which have also been rounded up too benevolently at this point) Concrete and Gold and Medicine at Midnight all fairly disappointing egalitarian non-stops for various reasons (with the boring songwriting being the biggest common denominator).
However, the only serious allegation that is But Here We Are has to put up with as an attitude-showing principle record, the one that Greg Kustin’s production is (once again) far too harmless, does not show the necessary gruff fighting spirit to provoke real rough edges, especially since the mix generates far too little energy ( how can the drums alone be wasted in the middle of the room?) – to listen to as an example already in Nothing At All, which patiently gropes its way to the pounding catchy tune that climbs on the gas pedal, but never goes out of its way excessively and keeps something casual instead of tightening the reins tightly. Little friction, manageable tension – and yet the group’s eleventh album is less a rallying cry than a revitalizing requiem.
For sure is But Here We Are not a flawless work. It is (at least as far as the stylistic articulation is concerned) hardly surprising – but also a return to the elementary core competence of the Rockband Foo Fighters celebrating, which shows so many virtues of Grohl and Co. with an accuracy that one would hardly have thought possible after the previous albums. But with the death of Taylor Hawkins (who is replaced here on drums by Grohl himself and whose death runs lyrically through the entire record), the band, who are quite ambitious in their pursuit of new challenges, seem to have focused their attention on the essentials: great, emotionally igniting songs.
Like the rumbling, scraping and galloping Rescued has such an optimistic, driving spirit of optimism that at the latest at the powerfully invoked climax of the Heydays of the Form may think. The fact that the opener is about a minute too long because the chorus is structurally too formulaic and has to be unpacked again at the end is an annoyance, by the way, which the title song as a construct of rhythmic variables with its epic gesture and synth patina passionately deals with fervor behind the climax.
In both cases, this is not further tragic – but a symbol of what little things But Here We Are separate from becoming a truly outstanding album.
The more pondering Hearing Voices bubbles up contemplatively, but needs a bit to really let the verse harmonize with the chorus before Grohl fades out in the acoustic strumming (and The Glass as a follow-up track, by the way, a better choice than the title track would have been in terms of sequencing) – a not really complete whole of a song, but there are failures But Here We Are no.
Mentioned The Glass wakes up with Grohl leaning back on the guitar to the cultivated band panorama and in Show Me How the band boss gets support from his daughter Violet as a celestial assistant in a gentle duet in contrast to elegiac wriggling shoegaze, which actually develops nowhere and meanders in a pleasing way: a fine facet for the veterans.
After the really fantastically solved catchy tune Under You as a catchy radio figurehead rocking with a stunningly creaky bass from the hips, the real highlights are found in the last third of the record, when all the arena-worthy mourning doesn’t shy away from sentimental directness.
How Beyond Me one lingers in its epic, anthemic mood, dignified and graceful, before the Foo Fighters soaring into the sky of classic rock opulence is awesome. But the band wants more: The Teacher unfolds as a ten-minute epic, which perhaps does not objectively justify the totality of its playing time, as the only, at least relative approximation to what was envisaged before Taylor’s death “Insane Rock Record“ but also knows no lengths, when the guitars gently sway on subtle strings to pull with an unexcited nonchalance onto the highway, gradually rear up, take a deep breath, get dressed again and cultivate melancholy, into the cosmos of The Cure submerge, find peace and abruptly pull the plug after the friction at the distortion: “You showed me how to breath/ You showed me how to be/ Never showed me how to say goodbye“.
The intimate beginning epilogue Restwhich the band soon wears dignified and reverently as an escort, until the amplifiers and synths roast discreetly and finally optimistic references to Grohl’s mother, who died the previous year, open up (“Wakin‘ up, had another dream of us/ In the warm Virginia sun, there I will meet you“), then even manages to produce something that nobody Foo Fighters-album since Wasting Light more successful: goosebumps.
The price for this was of course incredibly high – that But Here We Are albeit like a rejuvenation for those who have been brought out of dead ends by the state of shock Foo Fighters effect, which would not have been possible without Hawkins, can be understood as a worthy epitaph for the comrade-in-arms who left earthly existence in 2022 – as well as another, finally relevant pillar for the legacy of the Foo Fighters itself.
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