But Here We Are-Foo Fighters Album Review:

 

The Foo Fighters are gracefully back with their eleventh album(But here we are) their first since 2021(Medicine at Midnight) but their first since drummer Taylor Hawkins tragically passed away last year. They cancelled the rest of their tour last year and the future of the band was in question.  For this album David Grohl did all the drum work on this album the first time since 2005 but announced Josh Freese would be their drummer for the upcoming tour.

The band described the album's sound as "sonically channeling the naiveté of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album, informed by decades of maturity and depth" while lyrically exploring "a brutally honest and emotionally raw response to everything Foo Fighters have endured recently with 10 songs that run the emotional gamut from rage and sorrow to serenity and acceptance, and myriad points in between.  

The album was also described as "the first chapter of the band's new life". Lyrically, the album explores Grohl coming to terms with not only Hawkins' death, but also his mother, Virginia, who died at an undisclosed-to-the-public time in 2022.

This album really shows how talented he is not with the instruments but putting his pain and grief into music throughout the whole album. As the last two tracks are geared toward the two specific losses he had has endured. “Teacher” is a ten minute song almost like a two songs in one with mellow and parts that rock about his mother being his teacher and showing him how to breathe but never how to say goodbye. While “Rest” is his goodbye song to Hawkins that starts out mellower being acoustic before it rocks out. It mentions about life being short which he has experience in with both Hawkins and Kurt Cobain dying young. He is telling them it is time to rest and he may have gotten peace finally over his losses.

Tracks like “Rescued”(the opening song/a single), “Under You”(a single) and “Nothing at all have the same style as they rock out like all of their songs do. The first is catchy as it is appropriate for a single that plays on the radio, while the second has a good message about the loss he has suffered/isn’t sure if he will ever get over it and the latter has an interesting groovy sound to it. While tracks “Show me how”(his daughter sings on it) and “But here we are”(track title) that rocks out that also covers loss but the latter has a really cool sound to it but sounds like their old school style of rocking out which is great.

The other three tracks are very emotional with “Hearing voices” as it has a mellower tone/slower than the others and “Beyond me” has an eerie tone to it/slower with piano work and has a good message to it but then has a nice solo in it as well. While “The Glass” is very emotional (one of the best songs on the album) and you can really feel it in the music/words.

            As music fans we all hope that our favorite bands/artists live to a very old age and keep touring but we almost did not get that with the death of Hawkins. It all should be said that the world needs to give thanks to Grohl and the band for getting right back up and putting their feelings/emotions on paper/into music instead of not coming back. Losing two close friends in each band would destroy most men plus losing a parent is brutal but this man did a tour with a broken leg where he sat on a throne/chair and performed. 

This album proved they can change styles when needed as they never really had a full album about loss and the world needs more comfort music when dealing with hard times. This is an amazing addition to their discography, one of their best albums probably their best since “Wasting light”. The Foo Fighters will always be here as they wanted us to know “But here we are” and we’re not going anywhere.