It's been a turbulent few years for Foo Fighters. The band’s 2023 album, But Here We Are, found them struggling under the weight of loss following the death of beloved drummer Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl’s mother, Virginia, who both passed away in 2022.
The last few years have been choppy too, characterised by controversial headlines: Dave the long-acknowledged “nicest man in rock” admitted on Instagram he had cheated on his wife, and drummer Josh Freese was unexpectedly dismissed in 2025. He has been replaced here by ex-Nine Inch Nails sticksman Ilan Rubin.
On their 12th album, though, the band have turned a corner. Grief isn’t a door you can pass through and close. Rather, you learn to live with it, something Dave acknowledges on the Pearl Jam-esque roller, Window: ‘I saw your face… there in the window / You were a window cleaner letting in the sun’. But elsewhere, Your Favorite Toy feels like a purge in the darkness, a band sweating it out in a tiny room above Dave’s garage, recording free, fast and live, without a click track, and capturing the electricity.
In interviews so far, Dave has framed the album as “noisy” and back-to-basics, and for the most part, that’s true; this is the hungriest the band have sounded since 2011’s solid Wasting Light. Opener Caught In The Echo immediately feels looser and confident, like tense shoulders relaxing, as it builds to a melodic, cathartic apex. Of All People is similarly untethered, as though the raw, spunky verses are being expunged from the band’s very bones.
Things hit a real groove on the album’s title track. With Dave’s vocals compressed to a pulp, his delivery accelerates, from a dour Mark E. Smith monotone to a Nirvana Bleach-era yowl, as he blows literal raspberries tauntingly at himself: ‘Ner ner nerrrrr nerrrrrr… Hear that, boy? Someone threw away your favourite toy for good.’
Meanwhile, it’s not quite Weenie Beanie, but if you squint a bit, Spit Shine’s spiralling and cartwheeling riffs sound like something that could have genuinely slotted on the band’s frazzled debut, meshing together grungy riffs with bittersweet melodies.
There is, of course, some padding – a pattern repeated frustratingly across their discography that has prevented them from making a truly classic, no-skip album. If Only You Knew and Unconditional take things into midtempo, familiar territory, both tracks we’ve heard the Foos make many times before. And although Child Actor contains the album’s most intriguing, existential lyrics: ‘Was I good enough? / Losing myself as I use someone else’s words’, it unfortunately descends into a repetitive slog.
They do always come armed with an anthem, though, and this time around it’s closer Asking For A Friend. Rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, it grits its teeth and spreads its wings as the band put their foot down for an exhilarating thrash-off in the final straight. Destined to echo around the terraces at their upcoming stadium shows, it’s a reminder how effective the Foos can be when they work that sweet spot between the guts and heart. This is the sound of a band finding their spark again amid the wreckage.
Your Favorite Toy is out now via Roswell Records/Columbia Records. Foo Fighters play Liverpool's Anfield Stadium on June 25 and June 27.
