Foo Fighters [Vinyl LP]

FOO FIGHTERS was nominated for a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. Dave Grohl's opening post-Nirvana salvo, FOO FIGHTERS seems merely ordinary only in the wake of the historic, sweetly abrasive sensations that his previous band was famous for. Full of both lilting summer-breeze melodies and search-and-destroy guitar blasts, it helps present the case that Grohl's punk-pop blueprint just might be as forward-minded as Kurt Cobain's was, if slightly less grungy and a bit more blue-collar. Arriving at its destination by coupling pure '60's guitar-pop with the hyperkinetic pace of hardcore, FOO FIGHTERS takes most of its song-hooks for a joyous high-speed ride. Tracks such as the prankster-ish kiss-off, "This Is A Call," and the meditative-but-bitter "Good Grief" are perfect pop nuggets, with turbo-jet guitars propelling them. There are brief respites from such reckless rolling: the glammy verse-chorus-bridge of "Alone + Easy Target," the near-folky "For All The Cows," the sweetly Squeeze-like "Big Me." Yet, these are only refueling stops for Grohl (who recorded most of the album alone) before he turns the engines back on and blows through alterna-pop's speed limits. Named after UFO-like apparitions that U.S. fighter pilots claimed to have seen during World War II, FOO FIGHTERS chooses to ignore Grohl's tumultous real-life connections (there are few, if any, kiss-and-tell lyrics) in favor of establishing a separate musical identity. It's as though the songwriter felt there was little of Planet Nirvana worth rehashing, and decided to find a new (if similar) musical satellite to call his own.