Dave Grohl has rallied his Foo Fighters into battle once again with a brand new album, but perhaps he should have taken up a fight with monotony instead.
“One by One” features a similar production style to the band’s previous albums, boasting a dense overall sound marked by buzzing, distortion-drenched guitars, solidly underlying but subtly-varied bass work and hyperactive drumming.
The production formula still works, complementing Grohl’s solid voice and impressive growling scream and keeping the sound tight, but the songs themselves are stylistically different this time around, making use of darker melodies and rhythmically-heavier guitar riffs that were hinted at on 1999’s “There is Nothing Left to Lose.”
While taking on a slightly different approach to music is certainly not a bad thing, its execution is simply spotty, often getting lost in trudging rhythms and failing to focus the energy of the individual song components. This lends a disappointingly homogenous record, allowing it to come and go without making much of an impression.
The album would have benefited greatly if every song were shortened by about a minute. Not a single track clocks in at less than four minutes, and several break five.
This would not be a problem if the song’s structures were strong enough to support their length, but they aren’t, and as result the disc is a taxing listen. Only a few songs, such as “Overdrive” and “All My Life,” use their time efficiently to produce a satisfying build-up. Most of the other tracks simply miss the mark or drone on aimlessly and become repetitive.
This is not to say the album is without highlights. For example, the chorus of “Have it All” will set up camp in your brain with its perfect segue and bright harmony, which smoothly lead it back to the driving guitar interplay of the verse.
Also, “Overdrive” has a bouncy pop element amidst a solid rock ‘n’ roll foundation that can be found in some of the greatest Foo Fighters songs, such as “Monkey Wrench” and “Up in Arms,” but overall the song doesn’t rival its brethren.
Grohl has admitted in the past he doesn’t focus nearly as much on lyrics as he does music, and it’s evident on this album as well as the band’s previous ones.
His words are direct, simple and forgettable, which wasn’t much of a problem in the past because the songs were either laden with memorable hooks or so tightly rocking that nobody cared what he was saying. The problem with “One by One” is that few of the melodies are sticky enough and none of the songs are woven tightly enough to counterbalance the lyrical deficit.
Occasionally Grohl’s vocal delivery makes up for the lack of depth to his lyrics, such as on “Tired of You,” one of the album’s lighter and more subdued tracks. He sings plain lines like “I won’t go getting tired of you” with a slightly dissonant croon that makes it strangely affecting.
Unfortunately, the shortage of memorable moments amidst the album’s eleven tracks make it difficult to recommend, even to long-time fans of the band. With some much needed consolidation and fine-tuning of the songs, the album could have been more ups than downs, but as it stands there just isn’t much there to keep people coming back listen after listen.
