Where Green Day hit rock bottom with Father of All, Dave Grohl hit rock bottom by fathering all, no matter the mother. Grohl could mend his reputation, even musically, considering the enduring popularity of Foo Fighters. The band’s safest album in some time is, unfortunately, not the remedy.

But Here We Are was the first Foo Fightersalbum released following the passing of drummer Taylor Hawkins, and frontman Dave Grohl’s mother. The Seattle band’s eleventh grieved more fluidly than any other; Grohl’s roars were repurposed; the repair of shared counsel spurred elation.

Your Favourite Toy succeeds But Here We Are. Foo Fighters’ twelfth album promotes a different kind of healing that reminisces the band’s infancy, sans the magic of a young, hungry rock and roll band conceived from one of the medium’s greatest tragedies.

The passion of Your Favourite Toy is seldom healing; its ‘back to basics’ approach to radio-approved sub-alternativity might make you question how gutsy Foo Fighters were even in the ‘90s. Funnily enough, the album was born out of experimentation; in sound, in citing diverse influences.

Hey man, you want to do that? Maybe take a few notes from those Angine de Poitrine guys you promoted. Maybe don’t recall the Grammy-hunting, bullyish mentality you conjoined with hard rock way back when.

And if you are going to do that, god, maybe sound as passionate as you did on Best of You or Everlong. Grohl’s roars, repurposed as veritable cries on But Here We Are, only exist on Your Favourite Toy to benefit its ‘loudness trumps everything’ overproduction.

I’ll forgive Caught in the Echo for its role in the album’s grating loudness; it complies with an effectively experimental approach to performance, and structure to some extent; its harsh repetition, gnashing at Dave’s throat – “DO I DO I DO I” – is so unreserved, so nastily punk.

But I won’t forgive a tacky blues riff; Window regurgitates hair metal’s neanderthal relationship with white guy blues cloning, in which dumbing oneself down is considered a virtue. Nor will I forgive overly-compressed, overly-distorted nonsense that swarms every instrument; hello, Spit Shine.

I think there is validity to the healing effects of a rock album that is ‘just a rock album’ – see how Andrew W.K’s You’re Not Alone just goes for it whilst proposing a number of helpful messages of survival to its audience. But Your Favourite Toy is so unfeeling that, even when it does develop a conscience, it still just feels like anyone’s rock album.

A tale of survivor’s guilt is reduced to a bunch of cool guy rock yelps on Of All People, not to mention, the laziest rhymes you’ll ever hear/read. Asking For a Friend strips itself of the emotional intensity of the Foos’ previous album, all for the sake of a nice moment for a concert, for a universal message of ‘hope is something to hope for’.

Your Favorite Toy is toyetic in the sense that it primarily exists for commercial use. There is a man behind the music, a man behind the scandal, but Dave Grohl doesn’t do enough to reveal that man, that humanism. If anybody else released this, it’d be forgotten in no time.

Best track – Caught in the Echo.
Weakest tracks – Window – Spit Shine.

Rating – 4 out of 10