Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Foo Fighters, Roswell/RCA Records 2023.
I’m an unabashed Foo Fighters fan and yet I struggled with aspects of their first album since the untimely death of drummer Taylor Hawkins.
But Here We Are is an album long eulogy to Hawkins and to some extent Dave Grohl’s mother Virginia who died at 84 years of age a few months after Taylor Hawkins death.
Firstly, while applauding artists who stay true to their artistic vision, when it comes to the artwork associated with this album I doubt the wisdom of producing material that is almost completely impossible to read under normal lighting circumstances.
Transposing this ‘faded out’ technique to even include the liner foldout really was taking the whole concept too far.
If you go to the trouble to include the lyrics why make it nigh on impossible to read them?
I get the fact that it is a representation of the fading of the life spark. We are here one minute and not the next. It still didn’t soothe my frustration.
Now that I’ve got one of my main gripes out of the way let’s concentrate on the music.
But Here We Are is a powerful album that doesn’t sink into the mire of blackness and despair that are so difficult to avoid when dealing with death, loss, and anguish.
Death, and our responses to it, is the central issue but sadness and loss is only one of the numerous responses that we experience when someone close to us dies.
There’s also fondness, love, and laughter when we remember how lives intertwined and these emotions are given equal weight.
But Here We Are is as much a celebration as it is a requiem. The Foo Fighters have once more evolved and they have embraced the lessons learnt from the passing of loved ones.
And in Rescued Dave has written another classic stadium anthem to go hand-in-hand with My Hero.
‘I’m just waiting to be rescued, we’re all waiting to be rescued tonight’ Dave shouts in his rumbling growl. Surely this track will be the opener for their live shows for years to come.
The music is monumental, the lyrics are direct, and the message is that we go on. Forever changed by life’s experiences but always onward and upward.
