Foo Fighters
The Colour and the Shape (Capitol)
by Nik Rainey
The first Foo Fighters record was, among other things, Dave Grohl’s version of occupational therapy, a twelve-part valedictory speech upon sudden graduation from U. Grunge, and a refutation of the Klark Kent Principle (“beware the drummer’s one-man side project”). Above all, it was a shockingly graceful lurch out from the shadow of his former band (you know – Scream), and a recasting of the hard-pop formula he helped crystallize, only without all that messy, distracting angst ‘n’ stuff. Sure, he caught a little flak for his cryptic-unto-meaningless lyrics (unlike the Byronic tropes his old boss came up with like “doll steak, test meat”), but even that was okay – at a time when practically every lyric sheet gave off the creepy scent of tragic foreshadowing, it was sweet relief to go reflexively trolling for deep significance and having the nets come up blissfully empty for once. Grohl seemed so talented, well-adjusted and ego-free (going so far as to include a band photo on the inner sleeve even though none of them played a note on the record), you began to wonder if the guy belonged in rock’n’roll at all.
Well, looks like the boy’s learning. The Colour and the Shape, the first true Foo Fighters album, has emerged out of the usual murk of cloudy personal circumstances – a busted marriage, a departed drummer, the discovery that guitarist Pat Smear really digs Journey – and this time around, Grohl can’t fight the urge to pack his verses with betrayal, anger and petulance. (Plus he resorts to using the British spelling of “colour” in the album title, which can’t be a good sign.) The first few seconds of the album are chilling – he sings “In all the time that we’ve shared/ I’ve never been so scared” in that same cracked-inner-child-through-megaphone voice that Vedder and even Cornell are so fond of lately – but “Doll” is nice, short, and concise and bridges into the Bob Mould-y single “Monkey Wrench,” which blasts through its high-velocity verse and chorus onto a primally exultant bridge that inverts the pissed-off self-pity of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” (“I was always caged but now I’m FREE!”), the gnarl and thrash of a survivor that carries through the forty-five minutes that follow. Although full-band participation renders most of the songs a hair less immediate than Foo Fighters‘ born-classic Dave-of-all-trades exercises, the dual guitars spill over the pulverizing precision of “My Poor Brain” and “Enough Space,” spitting and frothing like a possessed cappuccino machine, and Grohl’s power-pop-tartare knack is in fine form on “Wind Up” (where he sings “I want a song that’s indelible/like `Manimal’,” probably an offering to Smear to dissuade him from showing off those bitchin’ riffs he nicked from Neal Schon) and “See You.” He even knocks around the Thurston moorings a little on “Everlong.” A couple of songs brush against mawkishness (the Cobain tribute “My Hero” and the mock-power ballad “February Stars” – I’d watch out for those Guns N’ Roses titles if I were you), but balance is restored on the delicate “Walking After You” and the perfectly-calibrated way “New Way Home” builds from a stage-whispered middle section to the full-throated, bloodied-but-unbowed cry of “I’m not scared!” that closes the album. Foo Fighters break no new ground on The Colour and the Shape, but they’re planted so firmly on the patch they’ve roped off for themselves that it doesn’t matter in the slightest. This is as good as mainstream alt-rock gets.
