With blistering melodies on a record played at full tilt, Dave Grohl’s band reshapes the rules of stadium rock.
In more than thirty years of a career, the Foo Fighters have never yielded to routine, continuing to invent their own rules of the game. In recent weeks, Dave Grohl has playfully announced, on a whim, a handful of concerts in tiny British venues (to get back in shape with their new drummer, former Nine Inch Nails member Ilan Rubin, and mainly for fun), then hidden in the shelves of various Los Angeles stores CDs he himself had burned with a new single never released, like a treasure hunt whose clues he dropped in an Instagram story.
Staying unpredictable and refusing to let the dogmas of the rock star system dictate the terms are among the guiding principles of this shaggy drummer-turned-frontman, guitarist, and chief songwriter of the project he built out of the ashes of Nirvana. Three years after But Here We Are, their commendable return following the death of their drummer Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters present Your Favorite Toy, a twelfth studio album that is their most concise to date. To rebuild after the turmoil he has faced lately (marital scandals, difficulties retaining a drummer…), Dave Grohl indulged himself by blending the razor-edged, punchy textures that drew him to the punk hardcore of his youth with the ultra-melodic side that has always been part of his DNA.
Ten Tracks
Ten invigorating songs in about thirty minutes and change: here you hear a band entirely ablaze, smiling with a tremor in their fingers. Frustrated verses, a chorus that hums in calm, and a bridge that climbs toward a jubilant peak, Caught In the Echo embodies from the start the celebrations to come, confirmed on the irresistible title track with its youthful harmonies (performed by one of Dave’s teenage daughters). The exaltation never wanes when the finale arrives, the superb and conquering Asking For a Friend (once again, no other group would place such a powerhouse hit at the end of an album), released as a surprise single in late 2025 as a sign of a forthcoming memorable album: promises kept.
Your Favorite Toy (RCA/Sony Music). Released April 24. On tour in Paris La Défense Arena on June 19.
