REVIEW: FOO FIGHTERS - BUT HERE WE ARE

4/5

Hereafter.

Summer blockbuster season is upon us. Soon we will see Hollywood franchises like 'Indiana Jones', 'The Flash' and Tom Cruise's 'Mission: Impossible' hit movie screens. Grab your popcorn...and your amp, as it seems we are in a scorching blockbuster season for big bands and music too this sweltering summertime. Especially this New Music Friday that sees new albums from Ben Harper (where's the love NPR?), Jack Johnson, Ben Folds, and even Bob Dylan amongst others. Headlining all this it's the new album from the Foo Fighters that strikes the deepest chord. 'But Here We Are' after tragedy for the rockers epic eleventh album, but first without their beloved drummer Taylor Hawkins, who tragically passed away last year. Now his stepping in front of the skins to sing the powerful 'Cold Day In The Sun' is even more profound. May he rest peacefully and forever rock in our memory. 

Frontman Dave Grohl has been through this type of hell before-losing Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain-but it doesn't make the pain any less raw. Now working and rocking through grief, the daddy of our generation's guitar God's and heroes performs all the kick and snare drum pieces (although Josh Freese will play with the Foos on tour) like the multi-talented, Queens Of The Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures bandsman that he is. All whilst 'The Storyteller' gives us more for the songbook like his awesome autobiography that we are still audibly making our way through (perhaps it's because we just don't want it to end...if you know what we mean). But these songs are all too real. Like the Roswell record opening single and album track 'Rescued' for their first album since 2021's post pandemic 'Medicine At Midnight'. "It came in a flash, it came outta nowhere/it happened so fast, and then it was over", the first verse soberingly tells us. 

The second single gets 'Under You' too, in all its skin and bone. "Someone said I'll never see your face again/Part of me just can't believe it's true/Pictures of us sharing songs and cigarettes/This is how I'll always picture you/Over it, think I'm getting over it/But there's no getting over it", Grohl mourns, raging against the pain, this is just utterly heartbreaking. Like on 'Show Me How', looking for the light at the end of this tunnel of grief that began and will always need with love. "Where have you gone?/Walk in circles back to square one/Made it through yesterday/Spilling wine, thinking of the time/Wrote you a melody/Rolling your eyes, I held your hand a while/Need not say anything to me/Hear you loud and clear, loud and clear." As fans, we miss Hawkins, but when we hear these words written we just wish someone (not to mention someone we revere in rock and roll legend) didn't have to go through a pain like this. We know it from our own experiences, but can't even begin to imagine what it's like for someone so close to a friend who's been through so much on their own once in a lifetime journey together. We just wish we could make it easier. Maybe singing along and chanting his name in stadium rocking unison could serve as the best solidarity we could provide at this time. 

The four formidable singles that preceded this 'Here We Are' album finish with the lessons learned from the ten-minute epic 'The Teacher'. An album standout that falls into the beautiful closing 'Rest' where hopefully this band of brothers can find a measure of peace. Someone's at the door, telling you to wake up as, "Hurry now boy, time won't wait/The here and the now will separate/There are some things you cannot choose/Soul and spirit movin' through/Hey kid, what's the plan for tomorrow?/Where will I wake up? Where will I wake up?/Hey kid, what's the plan for tomorrow?/Where will I wake up? Where will I wake up?" helps you begin to move on as you rock through like the ending of 'Come Back'. If only the ones we love the dearest could. But in reality, right here in our hearts, they never really left. 

'Hearing Voices' will haunt you, and the title track will also take you there, through everything you've been through. The lamenting lyrics, "Hey (Hey)/Lay your burden down/Turn around/Turn around/Fate (Fate)/Written in the stars/Arm in arm/Arm in arm we are forever" making for a spiritual anthem. 'The Glass' will shatter you too, before 'Nothing At All' finds something between the cracks like, "I've been meanin’ to tell you/I've been out of my head/Left my heart on your doorstep/Left you out of my bed/Maybe I'm delusional/Is that so unusual?/Didn’t mean to offend you/Was it somethin' I said?/Put me into your locket/And pulled me off of the ledge/Maybe I'm insatiable/I'm feelin' so sensational." Respites from the unanswered questions until death do us back together again are all too brief. We just have to carry on in their honour. 

It's 'Beyond Me' and all of us, until we meet again. But as Dave sings, "Everything we love must grow old/Or, so I'm told/Or, so I'm told/You must release what you hold dear/Or, so I fear/Or, so I fear/But it's beyond me/Forever young and free/But it's beyond me/Forever young and free," we can see meaning in the space between the here and now and the great beyond. Life is not promised, even in the seeming invincibility of youth and the heroes we put on our walls as teenagers. Yet as we watch them before we go we see that this life, albeit so fleeting, is meant to go on. To keep living and loving. Just like we did all that came before us. Just like Taylor. That's what makes it great. That's what they'd want. To fight like the Foos. Even the two Ben's and even Bob couldn't make something more meaningful this week, Jack. Dark times may have bereaved this band, but as you can see from the light of their album artwork, this is their white album. With the power of their courageous chords and the memory of their drummer beating in their hearts, the Foo Fighters will never fade to black. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Rescued', 'The Teacher', 'Rest'.