JR Moores listens to some alt rock releases and has a bone to pick with the chief Foo Fibber
Dave Grohl is on the charm offensive. I know what you’re thinking. That’s exactly what he’s been on for the past 30 years. Buttocks nestled into Norton’s sofa. Chummy cover features by David Fricke. NICEST GUY IN ROCK, don’t you know. Grohl brushes off that nickname, which was imposed on him, as well he might. In a recent Guardian feature, the other Foo Fighters disclosed how difficult Grohl is to work with (or, rather, for). Then there are those widely reported personal life revelations. They might have come as a greater shock if Louise Post of Veruca Salt hadn’t written a whole album, Resolver, back in the late 90s with its concept being almost entirely “Grohl is a shit”.
Let’s not be puritanical, though. This isn’t Mary Whitehouse Quarterly. To paraphrase a Jerry Sadowitz routine about another disgraced frontman, “What has the world f***ing come to when the greatest rock legend this planet ever produced can’t f*** who he wants, when he wants, where he f***ing wants?!!”
Worse is how many albums Grohl has made by now that have been trumpeted with further spiel about being really punk rock and raw and recording everything in a garage. Your net worth’s off the scale, mate. However much you downplay it, that’s going to be a nicer garage, with fancier equipment, than was ever owned by Daniel Johnston. This cognitive dissonance is one reason why even the rough ‘n’ ready Foo Fighters albums couldn’t be any more polished if they’d been napalmed by Mr Sheen.
And this is also where James Acaster’s analysis of the Foos’ career, although it is amusing, collapses. What Grohl said he was doing differed, once again, from the reality. He didn’t chill out and decide to just have fun after Nirvana and the first two Foos albums. He built a rock biz empire, tirelessly and determinedly, went from “passive-aggressive” leadership to something more “assertive” (as bassist Nate Mendel saw it), always wanted the music to recreate exactly how he envisaged it in his head and drummed on much more of his band’s output than some people realise.
Why? Because Grohl, like Acaster, continues to strive for perfection. Grohl is versed enough in the history of rock & roll to know that the pursuit of flawlessness can yield some of the lamest, flattest or flabbiest recordings in all of HMV’s racks. Yet there he is in his basement, garage or LA studio complex, tearing his beard out, telling his bandmates “That could be cool?” (translated by guitarist Chris Shiflett this means “no, we’re never doing that”) and swearing he’ll never resort to AutoTune while producing records that sound as though he might as well have done.
Since his infidelity came to light, Grohl has moderated his attitude towards band aspirations and ambitions, according to Mendel: “There’s other things that have more prominence: life outside of music.”
Your Favorite Toy was released on 24 April through Roswell/RCA. Foo Fighters’ Take Cover world tour will continue into 2027.
Burned As Witches by Burned As Witches
Don’t call it Foo Fighters! The first album by Burned As Witches has been made by another drummer who’s played every instrument himself. This time it’s Rick McMurray from Ash, a bloke who understands there’s zero point in having a side/solo-project that sounds exactly the same as the day job. (Take note, Jeff Tweedy, and the rest of yous.) Has McMurray been a frustrated riff-monger this whole time or is he a recent convert to beardy stoner rock? The record steamrolls along as if it was recorded by Chris Goss at Rancho De La Luna. (In reality, it was completed in a greyer and rainier location.) Its slower intros are rooted in the damp undergrowth of the first Sabbath LP. As for the hooks, they’re catchy enough to make Josh Homme and those two twerps from Royal Blood turn green with envy. Rick’s voice has a gargle-like quality or effect on it so he’s more at the Ozzy end than Robert Plant’s place on the rock-god voxometer. Nowt wrong with that; it suits the overall hard-rock swampiness. Don’t pigeonhole it as a midlife crisis project, either. The LP’s lyrical themes include greed, deceit, shame, religion, media scapegoating and death. Let’s face it. Taking a darker musical turn is a completely logical response to the state of the world in the mid-2020s. Praise Iommi!
The Great Parrot-Ox and The Golden Egg of Empathy by The Claypool Lennon Delirium
After a 40-second intro track, TGPOATGEOE (for short) opens in earnest with the infectious ‘WAP’. This stands for ‘What A Predicament’, rather than Cardi B’s saucy acronym. Les Claypool of Primus applies his signature thick-string fingerwork. A breezy melody is sung by Sean Ono Lennon who is presumably wearing a hat wider than Alan Partridge’s buffet plate. There’s a provocative first line: “Like a president caught in shenanigans with a beauty queen…” Despite its exploration of various anxiety-inducing quandaries, all exacerbated by the nefarious internet, ‘WAP’ rolls along as pleasantly as ‘Mr. Soft’ by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Each member takes lead vocal on different tracks or sections and if this album is their Double Fantasy, then Sean is the John Lennon to Les’ Yoko. Sean’s palatable dulcetness has its inherited (or affected) similarities to his father’s. Claypool’s wackier range of voices are an acquired taste. Sometimes he talks in a ringmaster croak. Elsewhere he’ll baritone theatrically, adopt a cartoonish whine or apply distortion to sound a lot less human. The latter suits the record’s concept. Bringing to life Nick Bostrom’s “paperclip problem”, TGPOATGEOE tells the story of the fight against a haywire AI, on the planet “Cliptopia”, which turns everything and everybody into paperclips. The set lasts over an hour. The final track is 13 minutes long (another of the catchier tunes and one that doesn’t drag). Whether you make it that far into the journey of the main character, “Hippard O. Campus Jr.”, will depend on your tolerance for technoskeptic psych funk with several jazzy interludes.
Hedonistic Hard Rock by Bong Voyage
No one calls their band Bong Voyage unless they hope to put smiles on listeners’ faces. With Hedonistic Hard Rock, it’s mission accomplished, fellas. The Oslo-based outfit look like bears and they raise the daftness levels by using the pseudonyms Bong Jovi, Abuse Springsteen, Elton Bong, Bong Iver and Kim Bong Chill. Their light-hearted attitude is complemented by the fact that these dudes know how to slay. They have an earthy sound, with distortion as grimy as Dopethrone’s at times. If it had a smell it would be the stale beer and tobacco residue on a ripped pair of Levi’s after week-long bender which nobody involved can entirely recollect. What’s more, the band have hooks. ‘Saturday Rite Special’ might use dirty production and lines in praise of Satan (and Iron Maiden), sung in a growl so gravelled it would coat your driveway with a couple of coughs. The anthemic melody itself could’ve been written by Journey. Next up is ‘Large And In Charge’. Ask ZZ Top to rewrite the opening track from Master Of Reality, then persuade Motörhead to cover it, and it might end up as this rip-roarer. Alternatively, are “The Bee Vees” (as I’m now calling them) Norway’s answer to Cosmic Psychos? Those Aussie rednecks would approve of another title: ‘One Hundred Million Billion Beers’. Elsewhere there are similarities to Nick Oliveri’s unruly methods of making a horrible racket, as well as further hints at the ability to write material that could be much more mainstream and, in the right hands, even stadium-filling. The palms-in-the-air slower part of ‘UFOria’, for instance. The 80s Osbourne groove of the aforementioned ale tribute. The mid-paced Judas Priest licks of the gliding ‘Enabler’. “All we wanna do is make a living playing rock n roll,” declare Bong Voyage on their social platforms. The evidence here suggests they deserve to. Help our Norse brothers out!
Solved By Walking by Object Hours
As ever, the Three Lobed logo basically translates as “This is bound to be good. Might as well buy it, then.” Object Hours are Nora Rogers (Solar Halos), Jenny Waters (Work Clothes) and Harrison Haynes (Les Savy Fav). Their Bandcamp bio reads: “We try to keep songs under 25 minutes for your sake.” There’s no need for such creative self-censorship. The longest track here is 9:21 but I’d be happy for any of them to rumble on for twice their length and beyond. Some of their instrumental pieces resemble a chunkier take on surf. ‘Sunken Vessels’ approaches the more noodle-strewn and mellowed-out regions of desert rock, where Yawning Man lounge in their hemp hammocks. There are shades of Oneida at their most krautrockin’, as on the fuzzy and propulsive ‘Yellow House’. Lacking Haynes’ wallops, ‘Mare Chiaro’ takes things down a notch. Object Hours are at their best when they don’t hold back, however. Come on, maestros! Hit us with your ‘Diamond Sea’. What’s anyone got to lose?
Here we have the first LP from Graham Kemp since the end of Glasgow’s Urusei Yatsura in the early 2000s. That’s a mad length of time. Who does he think he is? Kevin Shields? Are these tunes from new project Calacas worth the wait? Absolutely! Does it sound rather a lot like Urusei Yatsura? You can bet your bottom bawbees. If you mourn Kemp’s old band then Ten Tiger Trax ought to quench you for a bit. Still working in the vein of Pavement’s ‘Box Elder’, Kemp’s softly sung melodies are adorned and interrupted by guitar scrawl, short crescendos and unconventional tunings. Some songs are fast and lively (‘Free Time Forever’). Others are slow and gentle (‘Narwhal’). As for some of the finer details, there’s a pleasant spot of whistling on the title track and a Seamonsters-era Wedding Present heft to ‘…And We Fail’. Kemp is at his most aggressive on ‘Fuck Yr Altars/Winter’ which, at its title implies, is basically early Sonic Youth meets The Fall. Glad to hear he still has his powers.
When the documentary Every Time You Lose Your Mind: A Film About Failure was announced in 2025, you’d have been forgiven for asking “Who?” Most splashes by this band have occurred in their native US. Even there, they remain a relatively cult concern. On these shores they’re known to the most avid readers of Kerrang! because they influenced fellow yanks like Deftones and had one number covered by A Perfect Circle. (Superbly, it must be said. It’s APC’s best song.) Failure fan Hayley Williams of Paramore head-talks in the movie and joins the trio on ‘The Rising Skyline’ from their seventh album. Star guest notwithstanding, it’s doubtful Location Lost will have greater resonance than Failure’s other efforts. Track after track coasts along, never nearing the speed limit or swerving in any unexpected directions. This is a responsible attitude where the safety of fellow road users is concerned. It’s less advisable when approaching art. My field, so it seems and for what it’s worth, is rock journalism. And – Gordon Bennettatti! Wouldst thou gander thy bloodshot sight globes over this eventualifucketitty? – I’ve just typed the phrase LIP DIVOTS in full caps for no reason whatsoever and sworn henceforth to refer to the Duluthian singer Robert Zimmerman as “Big Bobby DingDong”. Is surprise such a tall order? It’s not that tricky, guys. In terms of its post-emo grunginess, Location Lost slumps itself into the space between Sparta and Cold. (Anyone? No? Moving on…) A more stimulating 40 minutes could be spent on a park bench, staring silently at some hawthorn. Failure are comparable to another band who nestle nearby in the alphabetically ordered record racks: Filter. (Eh?) That project has its ancient association to Nine Inch Nails. Beyond that, no British person harbours any curiosity in Filter. Do they? Not to get pompously patriotic about these matters but it’s heartening to know this country remains slightly averse to such lack of substance, with our cynical outlook innately resistant towards rock as woefully moderate as this, especially when it’s so earnestly enunciated. Failure make Bush look like Mr. Epp And The Calculations.
It’s raw! It’s ragged! It’s punk as Foo-k! It’s as pumped up as a trash talkin’ pro wrestler! It’s good honest rock music! It’s short and full of integrity, like… Oh, I dunno. Mahatma Gandhi? Your Favorite Toy precedes, and is said to be directly inspired by, the debut album by Dave Grohl’s daughter, Violet. Her father had “no idea” the fruit of his loins was signing a record deal. Hmm. Chinny reckon, as we used to say in the 80s. Grohl sounds so angry on these songs! You’re pretty sexy when you get angry, Davey boy. He’s almost as peed off as when members of the public ask him if he might be willing to sign an autograph or two outside a five-star hotel. Dave says ‘Of All The People’ is about “survivor’s guilt”. He’s misread his own lyrics there because it actually expresses resentment towards a survivor and that’s a different situation. With the exception of the slacker tune ‘Window’ and a ska-versed ‘Unconditional’, Grohl keeps shouting at people across these 10 tracks. Keeps shouting at us. Dave’s been seeing a therapist recently. This head doctor ought to broach the concept of projection. Is that what Grohl’s paying them for, however? Enough with the spin. Enough with the spoon-feeding. Enough with the hardcore healing Pinkett Smith radio rock. Enough of the celebrity bullshit. Enough! Enough!! Enough!!!
JR Moores writes more generously about Grohl in his book Off The Ground: Paul McCartney In The 1990s