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Foo Fighters’ efforts fall short with an underwhelming return.

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More personal upheaval coats the sonics of their latest, Your Favourite Toy as they surmise and take stock of where they’ve been – and where they can possibly go next.

Of course, for a band literally born from the pain of Cobain’s death, relying on music to help them through difficult times has been their token of success. Some of their greatest works have been born from grief. A better case couldn’t be better with their most recent, 2023’s But Here We Are.

A contemplative and deeply mournful record, the bones of it was made of the band coming to terms with the substantial loss of long-time drummer and compatriot Taylor Hawkins in 2022, aswell as Dave Grohl’s mother, Virginia. A devastating year that would impact all individuals in more ways than one, it saw the band at their most heartfelt, their most earnest. Channelling the spirit from their debut, it was a welcoming return for a band who, against everything, were still fighting the good fight. It can be said that where words fail, music prevails.

Now with their twelfth album, it has been equally strained. Bouts of Grohl’s admissions of infidelity and the firing of Hawkin’s replacement, Josh Freese led to many questions unanswered. In the build up to this record, these questions were left hanging like an elephant in the room. Of course, Dave and company don’t owe us anything, least of all to air their dirty laundry in public, but it certainly left a big stink around the star we used to coin the “nicest man in rock.”

And so, Your Favourite Toy comes with a ruffling of the feathers, while they bat away the circling PR nightmare. An aggressive-sounding Foos who are more committed to the bit, their latest sees the band return to that energetic punk spirit of old. This time around, the matter of loss is met with the loud, rebellious scorched-Earth approach. But amongst the distortion, something has got lost along the way.

Dave marked the album as something of a juicy “jambalaya” on a BBC interview – and in some ways, he’s right. Your Favourite Toy is a jumbled mix of the band just not being sure of themselves. Because of that, it doesn’t catch a whiff of the firepower Foos are evidently used to making. It’s fleeting saviour, opening track Caught in the Echo brings an intensity to a blaring statement of a band caught at the crossroads. Rather poignantly, Dave’s indecision to drive forward is present all over the album both sonically and in its lyrics. While, Of All People – an urgent snapshot taken from ’90s Seattle – isn’t far too removed from punk stalwarts Bad Brains – a band that had a lasting impact on a young Grohl at the time. Other notable pointers are Unconditional, perhaps Dave’s attempt to repair those family relationships, “I’ll find a better way / To explain this to you.. Under one condition, thought / It’s unconditional,” – and more of a way for Dave to broach the subject in person. Elsewhere, Child Actor channels the same rhetoric on But Here We Are; a sturdy song if not for the slightly repetitive chorus. The records’ longest Asking for a Friend ” finds Dave still searching for answers, “what is real? / I’m asking for a friend / Or is this the end?” amongst a fierce backdrop of collective noise.

Although recorded in a matter of weeks, the album was conjured up over a romp of 50 experimenting demos – and the ten plucked out are the lucky ones here. Interestingly, it feels like an experiment album too. It’s raw in production and spirit, but feels largely incomplete in its makeup.

It can be said that the best art is drawn out of duress. Without it, it’s simply millionaires having a jam. Here, while the likes of alternative whack of Child Actor and Asking for a Friend give it some life, the record is largely too safe and comfortable for such an out-and-out household name like Foo Fighters. Whether it’s the uncertainty of hitting the unfamiliar dirt track with speed or the lack of drive to conjure something innovative, Your Favourite Toy will see Foo Fighters fan simply craving for more.