Color me a hopeless nostalgic, but there's something genuinely heartening about hearing three generations worth of Dave Grohl bands dominate radio simultaneously. There was a time, last year, where Dave's day band, Foo Fighters, ruled the day with "All My Life"; other rock hits of the moment, though, included Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows" and a spooky new Nirvana song, both with a welcome Grohl behind the kit. It's nice to see, I suppose - the rock music of this particular day and age uses Nirvana as its template, following a form bashed into recognizability by Grohl himself; and, yet, as a singer-songwriter-guitarist, he's managed to stay hip with the kids and cool to all of us that grew up with what everyone else was referring to as "grunge." He is 1/3 responsible for rock music's current "format" - there shouldn't BE a format, no, but we all have to step to it: there's a clear format nowadays - but bands like Creed and Nickelback have squeezed that well dryer than dry. These bands have risen to considerable fruition of late. You know, sometime between the last Foo Fighters album and now.

Ah, but how heartening is it to see Dave Grohl, stomping up over the horizon? With the new album, One By One, his band has shaved away much of the surface silliness of previous records. And it IS missed - there's nothing as gloriously goofy as "The One," the Foos' poppy contribution to the Orange County soundtrack, here - but what's left is some seriously sweet hard rock that obviously aims to prove that the well ain't dry. It's almost as if Dave listened to a Creed album, sighed, and said "no, no, no - THIS is how you do that." That's why the album's more serious and heavier than previous Foo Fighters albums. Dave's showing the young-un's how to do it. He's holdin' it down for 1994, holmes.

For all its virtue, One By One is flawed. Perhaps it's because the shadows of Nirvana and Queens loom large over this record's hard-rock agenda, and One By One isn't quite as invigorating a listen as Queens' latest, Songs For the Deaf. And Foo Fighters record #4 occasionally contains stretches of homogenous alternapop that blends together in some, well, not-so-exciting ways. Luckily, One By One finds crucial songs breaking up snatches of sameiness with barrel-chested, goosebumpy uplift, "Everlong" or "Learn To Fly"-style. And we can all smile and bellow this shizzle like it was the mid 90's and you were the highway hero because you were bumpin' "My Hero" in your ride.

An interesting note: One By One is the most Nirvana-esque of any record Dave Grohl's been a part of since that band's ungraceful exit. Lyrical snatches of positively Cobain-ly anti-sentiment dot One By One, and Dave Grohl, an affable, workmanlike vocalist, tempers his mild-mannered vocal style with astonishingly Kurt-centric howls. On the opening track, Dave's voice escalates from a whisper to a scream, slinging around ironic misogyny like "done, done, on to the next one"; in the closer, "Come Back," Dave seethes "dead on the inside, I've got nothing to lose" as his bandmates intone "whoah-oh, whoah-oh," and one gets the unshakable, nerve-jangling feeling that Kurt's standing behind you, breathing down your neck. Not that it's the Great Lost Nirvana Record or anything, but Dave's old bandmate has left an obvious impression on his singing and songwriting, perhaps a larger one than anyone who bought the first Foo Fighters record because of "Big Me" might have thought. And, hey, speaking of coming full circle, Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins is a BEAST on this record - prolly the most propulsive rock drummer since Grohl himself. May the circle be unbroken.

One By One peaks near the middle. Though it tears the roof off with astonishing bookends like "All My Life" and "Come Back," the most exciting stuff comes in the center, where a three-song sequence of songs perhaps makes the entire record worth your hard-earned dough. "Times Like These" jangles and soars like this album's answer to "Learn To Fly." "Disenchanted Lullaby" is a mid-tempo behemoth, successfully splicing a low-key verse with a delicious, tendon-bulging, throat-shredding chorus. But the album hits a stride with "Tired of You," which builds and simmers over the course of five tantalizing minutes. "Tired of You" is just so good that it deserves an essay of its own. It feels like the beginning of a Nirvana song, one that, if performed by Cobain and company, would eventually build to a chorus of anthemic, raspy bluster, of walls of power chords and pummelling drums, but "Tired of You" never does this - it's kind of tantric in that respect. Oh, and you know who's responsible for the glittery harmonics in the chorus? That's Brian May, holmes. Yeah. The Foo Fighters got friggin' BRIAN MAY on their record. I, for one, think respect is in order. Besides, I just love the simple, weary vow of the chorus: "I won't go getting tired of you." What a song. Best song ever! Wait, no, that's "Gimme Shelter," but now there's an interesting comparison; "Tired of You" actually conjures up a "Gimme Shelter"-like mood in places, and that alone makes it the best song on One By One, natch. Heck, outside of that one studio take, the Stones themselves never recaptured "Gimme Shelter"'s impeccable mood.

Unfortunately, the bumps in One By One's road prevent it from being the GREAT record it could have been, as opposed to the really friggin' good one it is. Stuff like "Low" and "Lonely As You" and "Burn Away" all sport disappointing cases of the blahs; were they not interspersed with stuff as good as "Halo" and "Overdrive," I might have been a little stiffer on the record.

But when the Gibsons are packed away and Grohl's sitting at home nursing a throat infection from stuff like "Disenchanted Lullaby" and "Halo," there's one unmistakable fact about Dave Grohl that proves the common link that threads together the four Foo albums: he's still the best songwriter commercial rock has today, by far. If One By One's inconsistentcy isn't an improvement over previous Foo albums, Grohl's still more adept at delivering lyrical wit, clever phrasing, and pitch-perfect hooks than a thousand Chad Kroegers, and for that, you should all be grateful that he's still hanging around. One By One ain't a masterpiece. But man..... it's doggone good.






Recommended: Yes