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Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters "Wasting Light" album

- Release date : April 2011 -

Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American alternative rock band Foo Fighters, released on April 12, 2011. Although guitarist Pat Smear has performed live with the band since 2006, Wasting Light is the first album to feature him as an official member since 1997's The Colour and the Shape. The album's title is taken from the lyrics of the song "Miss the Misery." Guest musicians include Bob Mould, Krist Novoselic, Rami Jaffee, Butch Vig, Jessy Greene.

Recording of the album began August 16, 2010 with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering.

"Wasting Light" album tracks and lyrics

"Wasting Light" album reviews

Forget all that nonsense about Dave Grohl listening to the Bee Gees and ABBA when writing Wasting Light. You can even forget Bob Mould's killer cameo on "Dear Rosemary,” no matter how seamlessly the Hüsker Dü frontman’s patented growl slides into the Foo Fighters' roar. What really matters is that nearly ten years after Songs for the Deaf, Josh Homme's influence finally rears its head on a Foo Fighters record, Dave Grohl leading his band of merry marauders -- including Pat Smear, who returns to the fold for the first time since 1997’s The Colour and the Shape -- through the fiercest album they’ve ever made. Nowhere is Homme's tightly defined muscle felt as strongly as it is on "White Limo," a blast of heavy sleaze that's kind of a rewrite of "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar,” yet Grohl isn’t thieving -- he’s tweaking his frequent bandmate with a song that could have graced SFTD or Them Crooked Vultures. That sense of humor is welcome on Wasting Light, nearly as welcome as the guitars that ring loud and long. Things tend to crawl on the ballads, as they usually do on a Foos record, but these slower spots have a stately dignity that contrasts well with the untrammeled rock of the rest of the album. Perhaps Butch Vig -- working with Grohl for the first time since Nevermind (and that’s not the only Nirvana connection, as Krist Novoselic plays bass on “I Should Have Known”) -- should take some credit for the ferocious sound of Wasting Light, but the album isn’t the Foo Fighters' best since their ‘90s heyday because of its sound; it’s their best collection of songs since The Colour and the Shape, the kind of record they’ve always seemed on the verge of delivering but never have.

*** by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide ***

"Let's change the subject to someone else," Dave Grohl suggests in a brief quiet space, between bursts of high-speed riffing, in "A Matter of Time." If only it was that easy. Seventeen years after the death of Nirvana guitarist Kurt Cobain, the shattering end of Grohl's previous band continues to haunt the popwise punk he makes as the singer-guitarist-boss of Foo Fighters. "Memories keep haunting me/Help me chase them all away," Grohl pleads on Wasting Light, through the guitar rain of "Arlandria," sounding like a guy who knows there will never be enough amps and distortion in the world to drown out the unanswered whys in his head.

But this album is a special case on two counts. The first: Eleven tracks of fuzz-box brawn, mosh-pit-hurrah choruses and iron-horse momentum, Wasting Light is the best Foos album since the first two, Grohl's all-solo 1995 debut, Foo Fighters, and the first full-band blast, 1997's The Colour and the Shape. Grohl, bassist Nate Mendel, drummer Taylor Hawkins and guitarists Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear cut this action the ancient punk-rock way, to analog tape in Grohl's garage, and it shows in the razorback blur of the guitars and the hard-rubber slap of the drums. "Bridge Burning," which opens the record with insect-chatter guitars and Hawkins' avalanche rolls, is hellbent metal with a chrome-finish vocal hook. "Rope" has a chopped surge that evokes mid-Seventies Led Zeppelin, then straightens out for a later-vintage payoff: a ragged alt-rock glow with rough-boy harmonies.

Wasting Light is also overdue confrontation: Grohl explicitly returning to a broken and still-painful past, for both inspiration and closure. The album reunites Grohl with producer Butch Vig, who worked on Nirvana's 1991 monster, Nevermind, and brings the same nuanced approach to weight and release here. And Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic plays on "I Should Have Known," a song that does not mention Cobain by name but reverberates with his consuming absence. "Didn't hear your warning/Damn my heart gone deaf," Grohl sings as the initial darkness – a solitary guitar and the quiet cutting guilt in his voice, set in inky reverb – slowly blows up to a purging rage: "No, I cannot forgive you yet/To leave my heart in debt." If you ever thought Foo Fighters were Nirvana-lite because Grohl lacked Cobain's torment, get ready to apologize.

There are references to death – and the responsibility to leave things better than when you came in – all over this album. They also come in excited, defiant breaths. In "Dear Rosemary," Grohl gets a great vocal assist from a hardcore icon, Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould. And while Wasting Light could have ended, to perfect brute effect, at track 10 ("I Should Have Known"), the Foos go out with a kick in the ass: "Walk," a Cheap Trick-style uproar about taking one step at a time for as long as you can. "I think I found my place," Grohl crows – like someone with no plans to split any time soon.

*** by David Fricke, Rolling Stone ***

First Dave Grohl learned to fly. Then, in "Times Like These," he learned to love and live again. Grohl's latest lesson? "Learning to walk again," as he puts it near the end of the seventh Foo Fighters album. That back-to-basics aspiration is no coincidence: After scaling the uppermost heights of modern-rock stardom -- Grammy Awards, stadium shows, occasionally drumming for Paul McCartney, and a side project with a dude from Led Freaking Zeppelin -- Grohl built a recording studio in his San Fernando Valley garage last year and hired Nevermind producer Butch Vig to oversee Wasting Light, which includes a guest appearance by Nirvana's Krist Novoselic and heralds Pat Smear's full-fledged return to the Foo fold. The thing should come wrapped in flannel.

Yet Wasting Light is much more than a salad-days nostalgia trip -- it's Grohl's most memorable set of songs since 1997's The Colour and the Shape. Three-guitar riff bombs, like "Bridge Is Burning" and "White Limo," brandish real heavy-metal muscle, while the insanely catchy "Back and Forth" summons some of Nevermind's poisoned-pop frenzy. In "I Should Have Known," with Novoselic on bass, Grohl even snatches back the bluesy power ballad from Kings of Leon. But nowhere does this seen-it-all survivor seem more engaged than he does in "Walk," where over a typically surging arena-emo groove he convincingly describes his determination to "keep alive a moment at a time." Sounds simple, feels anything but.

*** by Mikael Wood, Spin Magazine ***

We're a measly two decades out, but '90s nostalgia is already hitting its dubious peak: Scuffed-up Doc Martens and slouchy flannel shirts are ubiquitous again, My So-Called Life DVDs are required (re-)viewing, and Pearl Jam are steadily reissuing their grunge-defining back catalog.

Still, it's hard for any new band to compete with Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl's post-Nirvana behemoth. Wasting Light, the group's seventh studio album — and first since 2007 — was recorded with rock überproducer Butch Vig (he manned the boards for Sonic Youth, the Smashing Pumpkins, and, yes, Nirvana) in Grohl's basement using only analog equipment. As if that weren't enough, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould, and the Germs' Pat Smear, who played with the Foos from 1994 to '97, all appear, forming a kind of Voltron of '90s alt-ness.

Here's the miracle, though: Foo Fighters never feel like a backward-looking band. Light is a muscular rock & roll throwdown, featuring the Foos delivering exactly the kind of catchy, pummeling anthems they're known for, with total disregard for the whims of the masses. ''Bridge Burning'' is rich and fiery — its layered chorus and machine-gun percussion will knock you over on first listen — while ''These Days'' is a tough, moody power ballad in the melancholic spirit of 1997's ''Everlong.'' ''Once upon a time, I was somebody else,'' Grohl growls on ''Back & Forth,'' but it turns out he's still that guy — affable yet fierce, and ready with a memorable chorus. A–

*** by Amanda Petrusich, Entertainment Weekly ***