Album review: Foo Fighters – Your Favorite Toy

Foo Fighters’ last outing, 2023’s But Here We Are, was a cathartic record, stung by grief and loss, while at the same time shot through with a golden nostalgia for better days. If there had been wonderings as to the future of the band following the tragic death of Taylor Hawkins, it was a vital response. What else, after all, is Dave Grohl gonna do?

While the heart of that record was clear and obvious and there for all to see, all the better to navigate such a maze of emotions, Your Favorite Toy will have many trying to piece various bits and pieces into the recent gossip about Dave’s life. You will hit an ambiguous dead end. Which doesn’t really matter, because this is an album that frequently finds Foos bursting with the energy they only really hit at their best.

This is in part down to a tangible, no fuss, ‘plug and play’ approach. There’s a scrappy, back-to-basics sensibility in Caught In The Echo, or the speedy, punky Spit Shine and Of All People. When they go fast, it sounds like they’re rushing giddily toward the chorus. On the less wild stuff, you can almost physically feel the groove, a natural vibe.

Window locks into a simple riff and groove that sounds like you’re in the room by the amps, before revealing an enormous alt.rock chorus. Unconditional and Amen, Caveman are classic Foos, the latter a full-on ‘do the chorus, then do it with double-time drums at the end’ stuff that fits like an old cardigan, while still toying with an almost post-punk middle and tang of Killing Joke (squint a bit) in the guitar harmonies. On Unconditional, it’s a proper ’90s indie-rock banger, locked-in by new drummer Ilan Rubin’s clockwork, straight beat.

It's only the last track, the released-ages-ago Asking For A Friend, that consciously grandstands, and does so brilliantly, with its vast vibe, big, slow-burning riff and panoramic chorus, before reaching a thumping, fast crescendo. As a song for stadia, it is a flex of a muscle Foo Fighters have pumped to perfection. But everything else feels much more simple, more direct. Thirty years and a bit of change in, having spun out in so many different directions, it’s most welcome to hear them being able to return to the source like this and not sound like, ahem pretenders.

It’s also refreshing to hear them just going for it like this. Dave lyrics leave plenty to chew on, with his talk of how ‘You were a window cleaner letting in the sun’ (Window), or how ‘The honeymoon is over’ (Spit Shine), or how he’s ‘Losing myself as I use someone else’s words’ (Child Actor). What’s more obvious here, though, is that Foo Fighters are still the garage band he often jokes they are.

Bands of a certain vintage often talk about wanting to make a record that sounds like a band simply playing in a room. Most of them suck. The authors have changed so much within themselves that stripping back just reveals what’s no longer there. Here, it’s the opposite, and Foo Fighters like this feel fresh, energised and essential.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Green Day

Your Favorite Toy is released on April 24 via RCA.