Artist: Foo Fighters

Album: ‘Wasting Light’

Record Label: RCA

Soundwaves: 4.5/5

Sounds Like: Good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll

The Foo Fighters’ ‘Wasting Light’ is the best rock album to hit record store shelves in the past five years. Most bands try to pigeonhole themselves into convoluted subgenres that litter the music industry, following the cookie-cutter format of tacking on a colorful adjective to the word ‘rock’ and focusing on squeezing themselves into one specific sound.

The Foo Fighters, on the other hand, are the grizzled veterans of the scene, a machine cranking out angst-driven rock songs for 16 years. Instead of changing their ways, the super group, featuring former members of grunge legends Nirvana and emo-genre forefathers Sunny Day Real Estate, have honed their sound and perfected their music. The result — an honest, sincere album that deserves to be blasted at eardrum-rupturing levels.

‘Wasting Light’was recorded entirely in lead singer Dave Grohl’s garage, and it adds a charming rawness to the group’s 11-track effort. Sure, it’s not as fully produced as previous records, but the not-quite-fully-fleshed sound fuels the album over the course of its breakneck pace.

‘Bridge Burning’ is an absolute tour de force to start the album, and sounds its best with the volume cranked all the way up. Grohl’s vocals are ferocious and bitterly shouted, while guitarist Pat Smear astonishes with lightning-fast guitar riffs that accentuate Taylor Hawkins’ dynamic drumming. Whereas many of the band’s previous opening tracks are hit or miss, ‘Bridge Burning’ is a dead-on bull’s-eye.

‘Rope’ is the Foo Fighters’ strongest single since ‘Learn to Fly’ and ‘Everlong.’ The song starts with some echoing guitar riffs that could be the introduction to a U2 song, at least until the staccato drumbeats charge into the track. Grohl’s voice is at his most melodic, easing off the screaming that sneaks its way into most of the band’s songs, but he manages to flaunt his range in the rollicking chorus.

Smear and Hawkins make for a dynamic duo on ‘Dear Rosemary,’ a track that lacks in meaningful lyrics and struggles with uncharacteristically dull singing, but more than makes up for its shortcomings with some cleverly constructed instrumentation that highlights nifty guitar solos and drum fills.

‘White Limo’ diverges from the rest of the album with its unique garage-band feel, featuring distorted screams from Grohl. It’s the Foo Fighters at the peak of their ferocity. Though it is sure to alienate some of the band’s more casual listeners, die-hard fans will clamor for the brutally raw anger the song delivers.

Each track on the album maintains the Foo Fighters’ familiar sound, but with a new trick up their sleeve with every song. ‘Arlandria’ and ‘Back & Forth’ have a bluesy swagger that sounds like the band has deep Southern roots, a lovechild between bayou blues and rebellious metal influences. ‘These Days’ opens as a heart-wrenching ballad, but halfway through the track, the adrenaline snaps into place and the tempo picks up to stadium-rocker level. Even the hacksaw guitar riffs that compose ‘A Matter of Time’ seem to have slight pop-punk influences on a song that should move to top the alternative charts.

The Foo Fighters take the phrase ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ to heart. Though some of the album’s similar sonic consistency may be construed as uncreative sameness, the band hasn’t reinvented the wheel. Rather, ‘Wasting Light’ is a record that cements the Foo Fighters as the torchbearers for rock ‘n’ roll of the current generation.

ervanrhe@syr.edu

Published on April 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Erik: ervanrhe@syr.edu | @therealvandyman