One by One

Foo Fighters

RCA Records

In 1995, Dave Grohl…

One by One

Foo Fighters

RCA Records

In 1995, Dave Grohl was modern rock’s strongest link to the glory days of grunge. His post-Nirvana project, Foo Fighters, fueled by Grohl’s leftover angst, teams grungy neurotica with Beatlesesque pop charm. On the band’s debut, Grohl sang about fingernails and Ritalin. The songs were pretty, and they were good.

But as time passed, the music became increasingly diluted, with each consecutive Foo Fighters album offering less punch then the one before it. While The Colour and The Shape embraced slicker production and poppier hooks, There’s Nothing Left to Lose saw those very things take over the music.

Somewhere along the line, Grohl’s angsty inner kid just grew up, and the same old Grohlian vendettas didn’t sound right coming from the mouth of an adult.

But just when we’d given up all hope – see “The One” – Grohl pounded his way back into our hearts as drummer on the latest Queens of the Stone Age album, implicitly evoking the early ’90s nostalgia that made Foo Fighters a success in the first place.

And now that we’re ripping the cellophane off the new album, One by One, it’s somewhat of a bittersweet anticipation; we really want it to be good, but desperately fear it won’t be.

Alas, we find the latter to be closer to the truth. Though “All My Life” starts the album on a high note, the songs get worse, if you’ll excuse the pun, one by one. By the time we get to the album’s closer, “Come Back,” it’s almost unbearable to listen to.

Grohl’s melodies have never been the problem. His songwriting style has always been somewhat pleasant. The same is true of his guitar work, which can be quite enjoyable at times. None of these aspects are what make One by One a painfully mediocre album.

But lyrically, this album marks Grohl’s lowest point yet. On “Tired of You,” he’s “sick and uninspired by the diamonds in your fire,” and yells “I may be scattered, a little shattered, what does it matter?” on “Disenchanted Lullaby.” Later on in the track, he sings, “Whisper with me/ pass the time/ whisper for the days gone by/ whisper with a voice inside of you.” The lyrics on One by One are bad enough that one might wonder if Grohl is joking around. But he’s not.

Because of this, it’s almost impossible to buy into One by One as a serious rock album. These days we have a word for the type of unapologetic, heart-on-your-sleeve, vindictive rock that Foo Fighters now call their own: emo.