currently listening

Another midweek spinnage

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Slipping seamlessly into the middle of another week with an eye firmly on the approaching weekend like a desert oasis…. here’s another selection of those tunes that have been gaining traction this week.

Pixies – Chicken

As the Pixies prepare to drop album ten (with bass player number four) The Night The Zombies Came, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the vibe of the single (do they still call it that? Is asking ‘do they still call it that?’ a signifier that I’m old?) they released this week, it’s a little different to their usual flavour but, as with the vast majority of things Frank Black, I’m here for it.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – First Flash of Freedom

I’ve been giving Mojo a good bit of attention recently. I didn’t when it came out but after a few tracks came up on shuffle I’ve lined the whole album up for my commute a couple of times and while there are a few duds (someone really needed to have nuked ‘Don’t Pull Me Over’), if you trim those out there’s a more concise and close-to-perfect album there. The blues-based, jammier style they tapped into for their last pair of albums fitted them perfectly.

Muna – Anything But Me

Sitting there waiting for a tire to be changed the other day I caught a tune on the radio that I could’ve sworn I knew. It was this, and I did – having enjoyed their self-titled album in 2022 but failing to have listened much beyond that until hearing it again this last week. Sometimes there’s just so much to listen to that I feel more slips through the cracks than gets the attention it deserves. I think I read that Muna‘s singer has got a solo record about to drop too.

Slowdive – Cath The Breeze

Slowdive’s gorgeous 1991 debut Just For A Day – pressed on a nice translucent red marble vinyl – arrived in the post on Monday and I’ve since been covering myself in a lush blanket of shoegaze.

David Gilmour – The Piper’s Call

Due to arrive in the post at some point in the second half of this year, David Gilmour’s upcoming album Luck and Strange is touted as taking a different approach in production values with younger hands at the helm that weren’t in thrall to his legacy and the ‘deluxe’ sound that’s been slapped on all things Gilmour / Floyd since the ’90s. ‘The Piper’s Call’ is a pretty strong tune and Gilmour’s guitar, as always, is definitely worth tuning in for.

Mdou Moctar – Oh, France

Two thoughts here. One: I haven’t seen Mdou Moctar’s fucking PHENOMENAL Funeral for Justice in any where enough mentions for ‘best albums of the year so far’ conversations and B: I’m heading off to France for a couple of weeks in a couple of weeks – timed to slip between the Olympics and hopefully avoid too much faff. Three: this song is a fucking belter.

Pearl Jam – In Hiding

Anyway, here’s some Pearl Jam. ‘In Hiding’ is one of those beloved deep cuts for me – while my battles with the black dog of depression continue it’s lines like ‘No longer overwhelmed and it seems so simple now, it’s funny when things change so much it’s all state of mind’ to a tune like this that help me up just enough.

Midweek Spinnage

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Been a while… again. Without further mumbling, it feels like a good ‘get over the mid-week slump’ exercise to share half a dozen of those things that’ve been getting into my ears this last week or so.

Wilco – Either Way

I’ve been slowly but shortly putting together and whittling down a list of what I would consider to be 100 albums that are essential to me – in a way revisiting a list I put together some sixteen years ago. I haven’t mentioned them much here, if it all, but Wilco are a wonderful band and their Sky Blue Sky is definitely on that list. It’s easily their finest album and I love this tune especially.

Gary Clark Jr – Bright Lights

Listening to the iPod on shuffle in the car can often mean a few tracks get skipped but whenever a tune from Gary Clark Jr’s Live comes on I’ll end up turning shuffle off and lining up the full album. I’ve been spending more time with his studio discography lately and his 2011 Bright Lights EP is a favourite and this is a hell of an earworm.

Larkin Poe – Preachin’ Blues

Across the summer, the park behind my house hosts a number of festivals and concerts. This weekend past was the ‘Maid in Stone’ festival which veered towards the hard rock / metal crowd. On our usual evening walk on Sunday, the cub and I were lucky enough to get there just as Larkin Poe kicked off their set and so sat under a tree a few yards from the stage – while not within the festival grounds – and got to enjoy a solid slab of the great stuff.

The National – Fake Empire

I added Boxer to the vinyl shelves this weekend (in a nice yellow hue) and hearing this made me harken back to a time that – while not all that long ago – seems like a lifetime ago in terms of political news from a former colony.

Bruce Springsteen – Rockaway the Days

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Springsteen’s monster Born In The USA. Understandably, given how he’s since shared his dissatisfaction with the grab-bag nature of it, if not sadly, we’re not getting anything to celebrate the milestone beyond a coloured version of the record with a few extra photos in the liner. No The Promise or Ties That Bind revisit. Which is a shame for, as I’ve already covered in a three-parter, there were multiple versions of the album and a bounty of songs that were recorded and discarded before the final album emerged. While getting those out into the air wouldn’t necessarily cause a reevaluation of the album, it would certainly be great to get them all collected into one place and show that the scale of Springsteen’s vision at the time went far beyond the twelve tracks that kickstarted his Rambo era of stadium domination.

Pearl Jam – Wishing Well

They may have cancelled their London show at the last minute but I’m still spinning Pearl Jam on any day ending in ‘y’. This cover – from 2015’s Christmas single – has cropped up a few times lately and is still worth a listen.

Swallowed up by the sound: current spins

/ Tony / 4 Comments

As the last few posts have had a somewhat singular artist / track focus and while I’m still in a posting stage of mind, I figured it was fitting to share what’s been on heavy rotation of late.

Pearl Jam – Waiting For Stevie

I haven’t talked about Dark Matter here in any real way yet. I probably will. I’ve played the arse off it since securing a copy on RSD. Yeah, Andrew Watt is still shit at capturing drums and loves compression just that little too much but, without wanting to come across like a pretentious audiophile, it really comes alive on vinyl. ‘Waiting For Stevie’ was much-hyped by those who’d attended the listening parties and it’s a fantastic centrepiece complete with that early ’90s vibe and extended outro.

Buffalo Tom – Come Closer

A new Buffalo Tom album announcement has long been another of those that gets me to the pre-order button pronto. Their 10th album Jump Rope is another late-career gem that leans more to the acoustic but still smoulders in all the right place, their sound perfectly suiting the more mature tinges to their songs as they age like a fine wine.

Arrested Development – Mr Wendal

More of that great early ’90s hip hop that I’ve been enjoying with my son: Arrested Development’s 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of… has been a regular in the walkman since we caught this one randomly on the radio a while back.

Drop Nineteens – Winona

Finding out that Drop Nineteens’ 1992 album Delaware had been reissued meant it was another no-brainer of a purchase. Often pigeonholed as shoegaze, while that genre’s influence on the guitars is clear, there’s something unique about the way they merged it with the alt/college rock bite that was on the upswing.

The Mysterines – Sink Ya Teeth

Not sure why the new album from The Mysterines has been pushed back but current single ‘Sink Ya Teeth’ has been getting a good bit of traction on the airwaves and hits the right spots for me.

New things from old friends

/ Tony / 2 Comments

In the interest of fairness, after my recent clump of new music from new bands, it’s probably about time to highlight such offerings from acts more familiar to the collective ear.

Pearl Jam – Dark Matter

I couldn’t be considered a Pearl Jam fan if I a) hadn’t listened to this a good few times since it appeared last week and b) didn’t pop it up the top of this list. Oddly, while it seems to be going down well enough (one headline review: ‘Song of the Week: “Dark Matter” – Put Some Fucking Respect on Pearl Jam’s Name’) I’m not quite beside myself about this. It’s pretty good and promises some heft but I’m wary about Andrew Watt’s involvement. Sonically everything he touches sounds like over-produced shlock. While the notion of Pearl Jam working at speed and not over-labouring can be good, their best records are those that lean into the depths in terms of arrangement and sound and I don’t think Watt is the man for the job. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll be spinning it as soon as possible and hope to be proven wrong.

J Mascis – What Do We Do Now

Whether it’s Dinosaur Jr or J Mascis solo, J’s album’s are amongst those I’ll hit pre-order on without hearing a thing and I’m never disappointed. Of his recent solo offerings What Do We Do Now – also highlighted by Christian – feels the closest to ‘band’ than others, with more gorgeous guitar solos than we deserve and a lovely rich sound, it’s already had many a play through and will no doubt have more before the year is out.

Sunny Day Real Estate – Novum Vetus

It’s hard to know what’s more addictive right now, this fucking brilliant video or this fucking brilliant new song from Sunny Day Real Estate. I say ‘new’ – it’s a song that they’d been kicking around since 1998 but was only recently bought back into play and expanded into this seven minute epic as they set down a live rack-by-track re-recording of their debut Diary.

Billy Joel – Turn The Lights Back On

Shall I give what’ll probably be the 265th blog take on the first Billy Joel song in nearly two decades? Nah. It’s surprising, it’s pretty damn good and whether there’ll be more is anyone’s guess (I reckon not).

The Mysterines – Stray

A new Mysterines album is due this year – their 2022 album Reeling was a real promising start – and I get the feeling we’re up for darker and heavier.

A New Music Fix

/ Tony / 3 Comments

“Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974.”

In my determination, as I march toward the middle of my fourth decade, not to become stuck in any kind of rut, especially musical, I try and keep my ear out for good new music as much as I can.

As much as there’s plenty of dross out there these days there’s still plenty of great stuff too. Though I guess that’s always been the case – as great as the ’90s were for music, Celine Dion still bought a few houses off the back of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’

Anyway, here’s a few from some new artists – as opposed to new stuff from known artists – that’s been keeping my fingers tapping on the Ferrari’s steering wheel.

The Last Dinner Party – Nothing Matters

Apparently Queen, The Sparks, Bowie and Kate Bush sit high in their influence list. All good and clear but these five young ladies from London bring something unique to the mix too and their new album Prelude To Ecstasy is bloody strong.

Whitelands – The Prophet & I

If this group of Ghana-born, London-raised chaps weren’t opening for Slowdive this year with their glorious take on shoegaze and dreampop then there would’ve been something wrong with the world. Each track I’ve heard so far has felt like a warm bath for my ears and I’m looking forward to finding their album on my doorstep next week.

Divorce – Eat My Words

Divorce describe themselves as an ‘alt-country/grunge(ish) band from Nottingham’ – I’d heard a few tracks over the last year but this is the one that sticks.

Sheer Mag – Moonstruck

Maybe not brand-spanking, still got that fresh new-band smell new as it turns out Sheer Mag have been around a couple of years but they haven’t got all that many miles on the clock. There’s a lot of different things going on in this track – some funk, boogie, great guitar, Prince, Kravitz even Jackson 5 (though I doubt the kiddie fiddler ever sang ‘son of a bitch’), but I love it all.

Softcult – Haunt You Still

My wife came home from her commute recently and said ‘I heard this band I think you might like.’ She was very much spot on. Canada’s Softcult are twin siblings Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn and put out tunes with a sort of grunge meets shoegaze vibe. Not only do I dig the music but I love their DIY approach and the fact that you can only get their EPs on cassette (well, physical copies at least).

We should have kept it every Thursday, Thursday Thursday in the afternoon…. for a couple of spins

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Never fear, readers of the blog world! I am here to put your mind at rest on multiple fronts: yes, I’m still about; yes, I’m going to answer that burning question ‘what the fuck has he been listening to?’; yes, you’ve made it to the ‘good’ list and Santa shall be dropping gifts beneath your tree; no, the Right will not win forth; YES, you have just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E STREET BAND!

Well.. at least some of those, ok?

Life, being monumentally busy with work, health, DIY projects… all of these things have conspired to keep my fingers away from pushing ‘new post’ but music has continued to throb through my ears at various decibels throughout.

On a side note, I spent last year’s festive period absorbing ‘Get Back’ at leisure whereas this year looks set to be spent soaking in the joy of Lee Child’s famous one-man-army being perfectly captured by Amazon with the second season of ‘Reacher’ providing a pleasing counterpoint to the usual fluff on at that time of year:

So aside from a lot of Bruce (as I work on another longer-form Boss Post), what do I want to share today? Here are a few nuggets you can take or leave….

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul – Inside of Me

It’s not Bruce but it’s definitely connected…. I’ve just got underway with Stevie Van Zandt’s book ‘Unrequited Passions’ and while I’m a way off I’m looking forward to getting his take on his departure from the E Street Band. Everything I’ve read indicates it was down to Van Zandt looking for more of a creative partnership whereas Springsteen wasn’t looking for that level of input. Given that Miami/Little Steve was already in the progress of making Men Without Women at the time the ‘now or never’ feeling to step out and try it alone proved too strong. I’ve yet to delve too deep into Van Zandt’s solo work but I’ve been giving that first album a lot of time this week. There’s some great lines in this one: “There was a moment in time, we could almost taste the adventure every day. Now I know that we’re a little bit older
but that don’t mean there’s nothing new left to say”

New Dad – Nightmares

In my efforts to stop myself turning into a guy in his mid 40s and paraphrasing Homer ‘they stopped making good music in 1996′ I keep trying to find new music that gets my feet boppin’. New Dad are exactly one of those newer acts that just tick a whole lot of boxes for me. They’ve been dropping great individual tunes over the last year or so with their debut album primed to drop early doors next year and no doubt going straight into my slightly-less-stuffed record shelves*.

Slowdive – Kisses

We’re already into that time of the year when everyone is publishing those ‘Best XXX of 2023’** lists and there’s been a lot of great albums. Slowdive’s Everything Is Alive is just one of those but it’s had a seemingly constant presence in the rotation list since its release.

H.E.R & Foo Fighters – The Glass

I had no clue as to who H.E.R was until I caught her collab with the Foos on SNL and then saw her mentioned when Music Enthusiast put Rolling Stones’s ‘fucking fiasco’ of a 250 Top Guitarists List on blast. As we’re talking great albums of the year I’m as surprised as anyone that Foo Fighters would make that list for me in 2023 as anyone else but But Here We Are is worthy of that place and this is a great take on one of its cuts.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Bitch, I Love You

Some time ago I got lost down one of those Spotify rabbit holes while delving into blues-rock and ‘artists like’ stuff and found Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and stuck around to explore and enjoy. This is the kind of love song that should get more play – though I don’t think I’d try singing this to my wife at any point+.

F.J McMahon – The Spirit of the Golden Juice

A couple of months ago we popped over to Amiens and grabbed a copy of Mojo en route. I’ll often pick up one music mag or another a month these days but the ‘Buried Treasure’ cd on this one caught my fancy and F.J McMahon’s ‘The Spirit of the Golden Juice’ really stood out.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his album of the sam name since. It’s one of those glorious ‘mystery’ albums (much like Solid Oak’s Top Drawer) in that since being pressed in a small run in 1969 it and F.J disappeared without making an impact. I read recently that, frustrated at diminishing returns in a crowded scene, F.J headed to Hawaii on a friend’s advice but gave up after realising he’d ended up a covers act / juke box for tourists and walked away from music. He joined the Navy and got training and a career as a field computer engineer. His record, meanwhile, was becoming something of much-loved cult classic and, once it was rereleased properly back in 2017, found a much more appreciative audience than it had fifty years earlier.

*upgraded storage not ditching any wax

**XXX as insert here rather than “step bro, what are you doing?”

+Not more than once that is

Wooo! You got a date Wednesday, baby! Midweek spins

/ Tony / 2 Comments

The will is there, the time isn’t always there for getting back into this after a summer lay-off… but lobbing up a quick ‘I’ve been listening to this sort of thing’ list isn’t a bad way to get into it, I guess.

It’s been a surprisingly music-heavy time lately helped by needing (thanks to throwing my back into a ridiculous shape) to work from home a bit more meant the turntable got more action than usual. Though that does mean less of my listening went to ‘new’ music rather than newer stuff from the familiar like the new albums from Slowdive (a clear march on album of the year) or Explosions in the Sky (absolutely brilliant).

Slightly off topic but I’ve also been enjoying the Wes Anderson helmed takes on some Roald Dahl short stories that have been added to Netflix lately. As a fan of both film maker and writer it’s been great to sit down as a family (my wife and I are about halfway through ‘Asteroid City’ and waiting for it to really take off…) but more surprised to see the credits for each of them cite Maidstone Studios (about a mile or so from our place) as a location for filming. While a lot’s been filmed there over the years (it used to be the location for Jools Holland’s Hootenany) it’s a surreal idea to think Wes Anderson was working away that close to home.

Getting back to the listening…. I don’t think I even made it all the way through the new song from U2, ‘Atomic City’. What a lot of shite. I wouldn’t say that they’ve done much of note for some time but someone clearly bypassed all elements of quality control there in the rush to cash-in even more from their no doubt minimum wage gig at the Sphere. No doubt Rolling Stone will praise it as record of the year… Anyway here’s a quick heads up on what I have been listening to….

Bleach Lab – All Night

Bleach Lab’s newly released debut Lost in a Rush of Emptiness is a wonderful thing, another gorgeous slab in what seems to be a resurgence of etherial, shoegaze fuelled dreampop.

Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas

Speaking of etherial shoegaze lushness… I’m fast playing catch-up with Cocteau Twins and their Heaven of Las Vegas album has been getting a lot of spinnage lately.

Motörhead – Emergency

It can’t always be ‘Ace of Spades.’

Bruce Springsteen – Burnin’ Train

I’m toying with the notion of updating my ranking of Springsteen’s albums given he’s released two studio albums since then. A recent free-trial of Apple TV meant I was able to watch the Letter To You feature which was a lot of fun – the somewhat overly hokey voice-over narrative aside – and much more of an insight into the E Street Band’s recording approach than ‘Blood Brothers’ proved especially when it came to Stevie Van Zandt’s role in terms of arrangements and increased solo playing as on this cut. I really must get hold of SVZ’s book….

The War On Drugs – Change

What to do when you discover a new record shop has opened in your town after years of no alternative to HMV? Well… you go in and browse and if you find I Don’t Live Here Anymore on vinyl for a tenner less than you’ve seen it anywhere else you buy it, take it home and spin that sumptuous album because no matter how many times you hear it it’s still fucking great.

Mitski – Heaven

One of those names I kept hearing / reading but never followed up on until I heard ‘Heaven’ on the radio a couple of weeks back and have been hypnotised ever since.

Is Thumbelina size ten…. on a Wednesday: mid-week listens

/ Tony / 2 Comments

It’s been a while again but welcome back, my friends, to the show that stumble and mumbles along in fits and starts.

After a couple of weeks without being able to really access music of my choosing or new music this month I’ve spent the last week or so making up for lost time, positively abusing my ears like a conservative politician abuses the truth.

Here’s a few choice picks from what’s been penetrating my aural orifices since I hit land:

Bleach Lab – Nothing Left To Lose

Sitting in the ‘good new shit’ playlist is the latest from Bleach Lab (not to be confused with Beach House) – a band I’ve been enjoying each new tune from lately to the point that I anticipate a strong album from them shortly. Plenty of obvious touch points in the music but not to the point of being derivative – if Hole had gone shoe-gaze and chime instead of angst and bitch perhaps.

De Le Soul – Eye Know

3 Feet High and Rising was one of those albums that had become almost mythical and hard to get your mitts on until this year thanks to its uncleared samples causing legal headaches. Having it in the wild now is great as it means that – after we saw Seth Rogen’s ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ (absolutely brilliant, btw) last week – I can dial up ‘Eye Know’ on Spotify along with Tribe Called Quest and other tracks featured on its soundtrack for the cub to get into too.

The Big Moon – Wide Eyes

Another from the ‘new’ file.. well, it’s from last year’s Here Is Everything that I saw all over the year in ‘best album’ playlists but somehow failed to pay attention to until I started hearing this track on the radio recently.

The Replacements – Left of the Dial (Ed Stasium Mix)

I’ll be swinging back (like a swinging party) to the subject of The Replacements’ revisionist packages soon on this blog but this one has been getting a lot of ear time lately. While The Replacements were often their own biggest hurdle on the road to success, their choice of produce was probably just as big a factor and it seems that they’re out to fix some of the damage.

Their major label debut Tim contains some of their best songs but the production was shite. Originally recorded by Thomas Erdelyi. Unfortunately, Thomas’ ears were shot – no surprise really when you consider he’s usually known as Tommy Ramone, the original drummer for The Ramones. So he listened back to everything and mixed it using headphones which can really only result in album that sounds like it was mixed on headphones. The new Tim: The Let It Bleed Version features, along with the requisite dump of unreleased stuff, a new mix of the album by Ed Stasium. Given how much stronger ‘Left of the Dial’ sounds I’m looking forward to this one.

Hüsker Dü – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely

Another of those bands I’d heard of but never really tuned in for – and a fitting tune to follow The Replacements – this one sits in the midst of side one on a compilation album I was recently given and provided just the nudge I needed to delve deeper into this Minnesota band’s back catalogue.

Spinning Newer Things

/ Tony / 3 Comments

It’s been a while… but I thought it about time to throw up / down / about some of those new sounds I’ve been loving lately in between binging on classic Springsteen (I mean The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle has got to have finest Side B out there).

Explosions In The Sky – Ten Billion People

PHEW! After announcing ‘The End Tour’ and pulling all other content from their social feeds back in April, Explosions In The Sky triggered months of speculation as to whether such a name referred to the band calling it a day or a new album. It’s the latter, thankfully, and its announcement came with the release of their first new non-soundtrack music in seven years, ‘Ten Billion People’.

Slowdive – Skin In The Game

You wait years for a favourite band to announce a new album and then two come along at once. Slowdive announced their upcoming new Everything Is Alive back in June with new single ‘Kisses’ and have now dropped ‘Skin In The Game’ too as… well, I guess they’re not really pre-release ‘singles’ anymore just ‘tracks’ which seems somewhat cack but this a gorgeous slab of that warm wash of shoegaze loveliness Slowdive have perfected.

Sigur Ros – Gold

OK: make that three new albums from favourite bands! 2023 is shaping up very nicely – all it needs now is for Springsteen to drop a new non-karaoke album. In one of my Monday post-rock posts I dropped a Sigur Rós track and was about to make a snarky comment about how they’d promised a new album in June and yet… then the cheeky little scamps dropped a new album like *that*. Átta appeared online in mid June (physical copies will follow) and has been in my ears many a time since, it’s another gear change from Kveikur, moving away from that album’s aggressive brooding to a more rich, almost ambient slice of beautiful calm.

Picture Parlour – Norwegian Wood

I heard this on the radio a little while ago. On paper (or screen) I’d describe it as Cyndi Lauper impersonating Poison-era Alice Cooper against a string-rich backdrop akin to ‘Design For Life’ with a pretty solid guitar that eventually bursts out into a solo. Which doesn’t really sound like a good combo but yet it really works for me. I think they’re from Liverpool. This is the only thing they’ve released thus far but I’m ready for more.

The Mysterines – Begin Again

Their album Reeling was only released in 2022 but The Mysterines are already releasing new music – guess you need to keep momentum going in the days of streaming – and ‘Begin Again’ is a a slow builder that does the job nicely. The acoustic strum makes me think of an early Placebo rhythm.

Blondshell – Salad

Blondshell’s self-titled debuts is one of my favourites of the year so far and Salad is a belter.

Walk in circles back to square one: Foo Fighters – But Here We Are

/ Tony / 3 Comments

You’ve probably seen / read / heard a chunk about this album already and with due cause. As it’s an album that I’ve spun close to daily since release – which is quite a rarity – I thought I’d add my take on the new Foo Fighters album But Here We Are.

This is a bittersweet album in many ways fuelled, as it is, by the passing of Taylor Hawkins and the non-announced passing of Dave Grohl’s mother a few months later. While grief and how we process it is a personal thing, given that the first Foo Fighters album – performed almost entirely by Grohl himself – was recorded as a way to recover from Kurt Cobain’s suicide it’s no surprise that But Here We Are is the sound of Dave Grohl processing two major life changes in one. The real surprise, though, is not just that it’s good but that it’s up there with the finest of their career.

Across their preceding career spanning over twenty five years, the Foo Fighters had dropped ten studio albums. Two of those – The Colour and The Shape and Wasting Light are close to unimpeachable. Their last few studio efforts had veered close to ‘commitment’ level releases to provide reason to venture out on another stadium-filling tour across the globe: Sonic Highways was completely ignored on their recent Essential… and while Concrete and Gold felt like a strong return, it didn’t hold up as well longer term and their 2021 ‘dance’ inspired album Medicine At Midnight felt like a slight deviation on ticking along. But Here We Are, though, manages to combine the musical diversity of The Colour and The Shape and, particularly, There Is Nothing Left To Lose with the force and tightness of Wasting Light musically and pair that with Grohl’s most direct and affectingly raw lyrics to date.

Hawkins’ passing left a vacant drum stool in the Foo Fighters. When they announced that they would be continuing as a band there was a ridiculous amount of speculation who’d be filling it. The answer, essentially, is nobody. While Josh Freese sits behind the kit on tour, this is the first album since The Colour and the Shape that features Dave Grohl’s drumming power throughout and on album standout, the ten minute belter ‘The Teacher’ (a nod Grohl’s mother) he fucking gallops along on the beat while the song moves through charged lyrics “you showed me how to breathe, never showed me how to say goodbye… try and make good with the time that’s left, counting every minute living breath by breath” before building to a wall of noise amidst a cathartic, screamed “Goodbye!” It gets to be real goose-bump stuff for me.

Yes, from opener ‘Rescued’ and its “It came in a flash, It came out of nowhere” to closer ‘Rest’ and “rest, you will be safe now” everything in between deals with the passing of those dear to us but Dave Grohl of 2023 paints in Wembley Stadium sized colours and turns it into a mass healing ritual across these ten tracks. Judging by the few shows they have under their belt since the album’s release this transfers live too as fans find solace in the process too. In anyone else’s hands a whole album dealing with this matter would be a massive downer, man, but the Foos have created an album that’s more interesting and powerful musically than anything they’ve done in the last two decades (less straight-ahead than Wasting Light).

That’s not to say they don’t still bring the power when they want to: ‘Nothing At All’ is ferocious, opener ‘Rescued’ is show-opening ready and ‘The Teacher’ thumps hard.

This is, in many ways, an album nobody wanted the Foo Fighters to have made but I’m bloody glad they did. Not only is it a fitting and powerful coming to terms with loss but it shows that they have a lot more in the tank than I thought they had and that, eleven albums in, they’re still willing to push beyond comfort zones. Essential for Foo Fighters fans, definitely worthy of investigation by the curious and likely to count as one of their best for a long time to come.