Foo Fighters – Your Favorite Toy

In case you’ve lost count, the Foo Fighters have “gone back to basics” so many times that it has practically lost its meaning. But credit where it’s due: following the passing of their longtime drummer, Taylor Hawkins, the band’s 11th album, But Here We Are, served as a collective process of healing in the one way they knew how. How they’d follow such a heavy statement was anyone’s guess, but regardless of the chosen direction, it would stem from a band that has demonstrated the ability to rebound from plenty of misfires capably.

The Foos’ propensity to write stadium belters usually prevails. And Your Favorite Toy is no exception, a lean, mean 36 minutes that rarely let up, designed to lure back the purists if they so choose. Releasing nostalgia-driven rock music at a time when those distinctions continue to blur even further—recognising that their core fans aren’t that much different than, say, Linkin Park fans at this rate—their modus operandi is simply to batter on.

Having recorded the album in a little over a week, frontman Dave Grohl and company do attempt to embody a punk ethos that is rarely in the cards for them. They tend to pivot harder when they play out of character. And as the in-your-face opener, “Caught in the Echo,” demonstrates, Grohl announces it loudly to the world by feeling this impulse to let out an intense shriek in practically every verse. We get it, Dave. But one of the Foos’ strengths is their ability to bring their pop sensibilities to the forefront, which, as the title track illustrates, matches the raw melodrama of albums like The Colour and the Shape and Wasting Light despite its naggingly taunting chorus.

To an extent, the Foos have distanced themselves from the muscular, radio-friendly hard rock of their most forgettable records for the better. But where they seem to have recaptured their musical identity, the same can’t be said for Grohl’s tendency to self-judge. Grohl seems to check his ego on the charging power ballad of “Asking for a Friend,” in which he tries to look ahead over continuous emotional turmoil. But when it follows the quasi-political “Amen, Cavemen,” which has a late-career Hüsker Dü swing to it, you’re left wishing it conveyed some of Bob Mould’s depth.

Twelve albums in, it’s natural for a band like the Foos to go wherever their instincts take them. But while they try subtle new tricks, like compressing Grohl’s vocals to almost-grating levels amid muddy sound mixing, their attempts at sounding edgy usually land in a pleasant middle ground. Which, when compared to the vagueness of their biggest anthems, could be seen as a revelation of sorts. But anyone who’s followed the Foos from the very beginning knows their song remains the same: charge ahead and forget the rest.

Your New Favorite Toy is out now via RCA Records.