As befits a rock star of his status, it follows that Grohl's garage is no dank shed paved in slug pellets. It is probably rather plusher than most of our houses, thus parking the notion of an analogue garage album as an exercise in passionate mid-fidelity.
I Should Have Known is undoubtedly heartfelt and direct — an elegy for Grohl's childhood friend-cum-roadie Jimmy Swanson, who died of an overdose in 2008 but it will inevitably stand in as an elegy for another death, 14 years previously. As Grohl beats himself up — "I should have known," he howls — you want to comfort this most life-affirming musician. But simultaneously, you wish he could summon more of the taut emotional clout which graced 2002's Times Like These or All My Life.
Another hero is buried in the duet Dear Rosemary — hardcore legend Bob Mould. Grohl has recently acknowledged that Mould's bands, Husker Du and Sugar, have provided a great deal of Foos raw material. But although the song is a perfectly serviceable slow-burner, there's nowhere near enough of Mould's vintage input to even up the scores. The riff, meanwhile, actually recalls the Raconteurs' Steady, As She Goes.
Anyone coming to Wasting Light for a back-to-basics Foos album will find instead one that is rather more thickset and refined, one that only very comfortable rock industry men might consider raw or primal. Much of Wasting Light rocks just fine, but takes precisely no risks with the Foos' commercially peaking, but artistically diminishing, tattooed chug-pop.
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