Foo Fighters - One By One

  by Mark Rowland

published: 14 / 11 / 2002

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It is hard to believe that it's been seven years since Nirvana's Dave Grohl unveiled his Foo Fighters project to the surprise of the masses, a year after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. At the time, Grohl was thought of as just a good sticksman. Now, however, the Foo Fighters have gone from being a lo-fi project that was basically Dave on his own, to a hugely popular rock band that sells out stadiums and headlines festivals. For most of this year, however, the future of the band was questioned continually, after drummer Taylor Hawkins' overdosed at a festival show at the end of 2001, and Grohl temporarily took up the position of drummer with Queens of the Stone Age. Strangely enough though, it was these two events that revitalised the band, Grohl was re-introduced to rockin' out with QOTSA, and Hawkins' near death experience caused the band to ponder their own mortality, and question their achievements to date in their career. Grohl has admitted to holding back a lot when it came to his song-writing, claiming that he had a fear of depressing people with his lyrics. On 'One by One' however, you get the impression that he's holding back nothing at all. The album kicks off with the spectacular first single from the album , 'All My Life' . From the off you can tell that the Foos are wading out a little bit further on this album, taking in more darker, heavier influences, the dissonance between the two guitars on the album's opener being a prime example. The next track, 'Low', takes a similar direction, but has (unsurprisingly) a slight Queens influence. Don't panic those of you who think that the Foos have lost what made them great in the first place ! All of the old elements in the Foos' sound are still there. They've just been given a sharper, rockier edge, which contrasts neatly with their more poppy previous album 'There is Nothing Left to Lose'. Tracks like 'Halo' and 'Have it All', however, would be right at home on that album. 'Have it All' is especially good, marrying an unbelievably catchy hook with dirty rock riffage. Dave's vocal's, though melodic as ever, are also a lot less polished on this album than they previously were, and on 'Disenchanted Lullaby', Dave develops a full-on rawk voice. This gives the album more of a 'live' feel than its predecessors, and captures in the process a lot of the energy of the live Foos that has never really been caught fully on record. 'Tired of You' also deserves special mention for being the best ballad that Grohl has ever written, and even manages to feature Queen guitarist Brian May without sounding like the aural equivalent of decade-old stilton. If that's not reason enough to buy the album, I don't know what is.

Track Listing:-

1 All My Life
2 Low
3 Have It All
4 Times Like These
5 Disenchanted Lullaby
6 Tired Of You
7 Halo
8 Lonely As You
9 Overdrive
10 Burn Away
11 Come Back

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