“It came in a flash/ It came out of nowhere/ It happened so fast/ And then it was over!” The death of Taylor Hawkins, who had been the drummer for Foo Fighters since 1997 and was found lifeless in a hotel room in Bogotá in March 2022 overshadowed this album, has left its mark everywhere – as in the song “Rescued”, in which Dave Grohl explores the question of how one manages to cope with such a loss between power chords and a stubborn beat.
“But Here We Are” is a requiem in white. The blank cover represents a fresh start. It represents the bewilderment and disorientation that followed Hawkins’ death for Grohl and his band. And indeed, the eleventh album by the Foo Fighters is one single obstinate, loud perseverance slogan, a defiant commitment to carry on without knowing how to carry on. The ten songs work through the five phases of mourning (denial, anger, haggling, negotiating, depression, acceptance) – for example in the title song, which stumbles over an odd beat, in ballads like “Beyond Me” and “Show Me How” or in the bulky -beautiful Schrammelrock finale “Rest”. Wrapping post-grunge power rock in bittersweet melancholy, the album is a navel gazing of heavy guitars and great sensitivity. In good moments, the Foo Fighters sound like Hüsker Dü (“Under You”), in bad moments like a mainstream combo equipped with a few guitars too much (“Hearing Voices”).
Not all of the songs on “But Here We Are” qualify as classics, but the Foo Fighters always manage to grab one: when “Nothing At All” turns from a kind of jagged new wave number in the chorus into a grunge rocker or when “The Teacher” piles up into a ten-minute rock epic. Nevertheless: The album, on which Grohl played the drums himself, sounds more like carrying on like this than a new beginning. While Hawkins’ death marks a major turning point in the band’s biography, it does not mark a musical turning point. (Sony)
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