Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released April 12, 2011, by Roswell and RCA. It's their first album to feature guitarist Pat Smear since The Colour and the Shape (1997); he appeared on their previous album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007), as a session musician only. Wanting to capture the essence of their earlier work and avoid the artificiality of digital recording, Foo Fighters recorded in the garage of frontman Dave Grohl in Encino, California, using only analog equipment. The sessions were produced by the band alongside Butch Vig, with whom Grohl had worked on Nirvana's Nevermind (1991). Since the old equipment did not allow for many mistakes to be corrected Read more on Last.fm.
It’s like the Foo Fighter’s cranked it up to 11, what’s not to like?
One on the greates albums of the year, perhaps one of the greatest ’till Mr Dave and company decides to record something new.
With this album (undoubtedly their most inspired), Foo has impenetrably become the rock ‘n roll Everyman. At this point, they could do literally anything they wanted, but they’re still turning out anthem after anthem, and every song feels fresh and … well, great. And every, every, everything here is great, including the mostly-analog “garage”-but-still-massive production. From the ripping (“White Limo”) to the gripping (“I Should Have Known”), what makes Foo – Dave, really, if we’re being frank – so great is that everything is so gut-bustingly emotive. This is a band of real guys who feel real feelings. If you fail to grasp that listening to Wasting Light, watch Live at Wembley, when Dave tears up at the sound of nearly 100,000 people singing along fervently to his lyrics. Foo’s immortality rests squarely in that, every album cycle, they manage to reconnect us to who we are and who we can be. It’s times like these, as a poet once said, time and time again.
While not as instantly likable as Nothing Left To Lose or TCATS, Wasting Light is a better record than both in terms of craft.
It’s getting hard to judge the Foo Fighters. They’re so indubitably rock ‘n’ roll that almost any effort seems to become an energetic rock anthem. I have no doubts Grohl and crew are hard-working and deserving of their icon status, but it would take an unlistenable selection of songs to make a ‘mediocre’ FF album. That being said, the fact that this album was recorded entirely analog until post-production gives “Wasting Light” a tangible garage-rock sound and feel that somehow forces you to turn it up louder.