Foo Fighters
But Here We Are
Roswell/RCA
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I sit with a well of hesitation. My fingers reach for and then hover over the play button. If this was any other Foo Fighters album in their mammoth 28-year career, I would be rushing to press play.
But this isn’t just any other Foo Fighters’ album. This is their first studio release since the untimely and tragic passing of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins in March of last year. It’s pretty safe to safe that if Dave Grohl is the captain on the merry FF rocket ship, then Hawkins provided the fuel that could launch them beyond the stars.
And so my finger hovers. I want this album to be good—oh boy do I want it to be good. I know I’ll be listening for references and motifs that pay homage to their fallen friend. “It’s okay if the album isn’t great,” I tell myself. After all, there has been a patchy album or two in the catalogue.
But this album needs to be great. To be more than just an emotional hurdle to get over. I feel I need to love it too. To accept a new era of the Foos without Hawkins without being constantly reminded of it. And I’m just a fan. Imagine what it must be like for Grohl and his fellow Foos. That pain. That agony. That journey is unfathomable. Yet here it is, 15 months on from Hawkins’ passing, and it’s time for the Foos to do what they do best and honor a friend by keeping that rocket ship firing.
So I let my finger press play and I’m awash with emotions I didn’t think I would feel. Maybe it’s the gruff heartache in the opening line of the album-commencing “Rescued,” “It came in a flash / It came out of now / It happened so fast / And then it’s over.” And in that simple stanza, Grohl takes a personal pain and pushes it out into the masses with existential musings of life in general. “And we’re all just waiting to be rescued tonight” he wails as the song unwinds and he conveys the feelings we all have in us. And for the next 48 minutes, he offers us a lifeline.
But Here We Are is a symphony in the eight stages of grief. In fact, the album could just as easily have been called Eight Stages In Ten Parts. From the reflective “Under You,” with all the Foo hallmarks of a blistering riff, rocking bottom, and singalong melodies that unite, to longing in the ethereal “Hearing Voices” and the rolling melancholy of “The Glass.”
On the title track, the rock is turned up, the pain visceral and raw. It feels like a one-take adventure in denial and acceptance as Grohl wails, “Caught in illusion / not an illusion / Waning, fading innocence / …. But here we are.” It’s spellbinding with a raucous melody and outstretched harmonies. The band play as one pumping heart, swelling and swelling in echoes of pain.
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And on “Nothing At All,” the echoes of grunge with its brooding verses and explosive choruses reverberate with force, which counter the rockstream cruising of “Show Me How” which features Grohl and his daughter Violet duetting on a song of comfort and compassion that embraces you and carries you skyward.
Thoughts of legacy and aftermath are present on the pensive “Beyond Me,” which captures you from the first note and lyrically explores the journey of life and those cut short, and a quest for answers that can’t come.
Clocking in at 10 minutes, “The Teacher” is a swirling hurricane of emotion and thunderous drumming and angular riffs set against sweeping orchestrations and lulling guitars as Grohl laments, “You showed me how to breathe / Never showed me how to say goodbye.” There’s a brewing intensity prevailing the track, and Grohl’s drumming (as he does elsewhere on the album) tries to close the cosmic loop. For where Hawkins joined Foo Fighters under the arduous task to sound like Grohl, it now feels like it is Grohl trying to capture the spirit of Hawkins. The final moments, in which the heavy word “Goodbye” repeats until it is obliterated in crushing distortion, send a jolt to the heart. And its abrupt stop drives the point home.
Album closer “Rest” is the at-peace moment that collides hopeful utterances of “Rest / You will be safe now” with distorted sonic booms that rattle you to the core. It’s the eulogy Hawkins deserves, and one you hope brings its own sense of peace and rest for Grohl. “In the warm Virginia Sun / There I will meet you.” Bittersweet to the end.
As the album ends, the experience is as celebratory as it is cathartic. An album that hits the right chord time and time again, not weighed down by its content, but freed by its expression. It’s an album that deserves to be given its moment in the sun. And it will have you reaching for that play button time and time again.
Notable Tracks: “The Glass” | “Show Me How” | “The Teacher” | “Under You”
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