
If this were a totally common rock and roll record, the title would likely be dumbed down to something like "Nuthin' to Lose." But since there's nothing common about the life story of Foo founder and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, you almost get the feeling that he opted for elegiac formality because five years and three albums after the suicide of his one-time bandmate and inspirational guide, he wants to acknowledge that common rock and roll is all he has left to give.
The first Foo album was essentially a test run; the second examined a shattered marriage from contrasting musical and emotional shards that shone and cut. But here Grohl and a largely new lineup settle into a formula of rough guitar and smooth vocals that sounds immediately familiar on the first spin and slightly hackneyed by the third, like a set of Nirvana covers by the Alan Parsons Project. There's no crime in common rock and roll, of course - and plenty of this is pretty and gritty in all the right places, from the grunge-rooted "Stacked Actors" to the country-tinged "Ain't It the Life." But any Foo fan who believes that it somehow helps free us from Kurt Cobain's legacy of anguish and anger simply can't be dumbed down to enough.
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