Foo Fighters : Your Favorite Toy
“Dad rock” is often used as a pejorative term. And yet it would feel simply dishonest to claim that the essence of the Foo Fighters‘ twelfth studio release, Your Favorite Toy, isn’t the most fist-pumpingly brilliant sort of dad rock you’ve ever heard (and after all, it’s been written and performed by a band consisting literally entirely of middle-aged dads. What else would it be?). Charismatic, invigorating, and aggressive, this is an album that far surpasses an attempt to recapture the magic of wild youth; rather, the frenzied rocking-out feels genuinely joyful. Here we have a group of talented musicians taking a look at the fire in their bellies and fanning the flames with a lifetime’s worth of songwriting experience.
Throughout their career, the Foo Fighters have carved out something of name for themselves as the band who won’t be pigeonholed; from the daintiest of acoustic ballads to thrashy rock ‘n’ roll scorchers that would sit comfortably among some of the original heavy metal greats, they’ve done it all, and could do it all again at the drop of a hat if they had to. It’s a surprise, then, that, on Your Favorite Toy, such musical variety is largely absent. Rather, the band put their foot on the gas from the moment the record kicks off with opener “Caught in the Echo” (featuring a seductively cool riff that swaggers up and down the neck of the guitar while Dave Grohl blurts his iconic shriek over the top), and they barely relent throughout the 36 minutes that follow. There is some light and shade, of course—a little room to breathe—but really, it’s all relative. The album enjoys a few softer moments with tracks like “Unconditional” and “Child Actor,” sure—but they’re both hefty alt-rock offerings in their own right, soft only in comparison to tracks like “Spit Shine,” a tough, manic, punk-adjacent tune boasting riffs that seem to collapse in on themselves as Grohl yells his grievances with at the listener with a searing, scrappy frustration that never truly abates across Your Favorite Toy’s 10 tracks. Ilan Rubin’s work on the drums does much to add to this feeling of the band as a fired-up force of nature—while he’s hardly a one-trick pony, the percussion throughout tends toward the stripped-back and the straight-forward; it’s an energizing, driving, motorik style, providing the songs with a powerful, muscular backbone.
But powerful, of course, does not mean perfect. There are a few moments on Your Favorite Toy that feel like the band are just playing for time, trying to fill space, momentarily abdicating their otherwise remarkably sharp songwriting ability. A couple of songs see their titles (or other phrases) repeated over and over again in the lyrics like they’re marketing slogans (one of the less appreciable parts of the dad rock formula). But these instances are only really issues because we know the Foo Fighters can do so much better, and, by and large, they do. Your Favorite Toy begins with a punch, and courtesy of the melodious and melodramatic track 12, “Asking For A Friend,” ends with one as well. And that’s to say nothing of the plethora of punches thrown in between, too. So, this album is a bit like the Foo Fighters have all gathered around you to beat you up. It’s a damn good time.
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Year: 2026
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Foo Fighters : Your Favorite Toy
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I like this, good job!