For many, the notion of loss is difficult to tackle when facing it head-on. Foo Fighters know this, and through the meticulous crafting created since the passing of their drummer Taylor Hawkins, and lead singer, Dave Grohl’s mother, nothing will stop them. It transfixes you with how they come together and tightens the familial bond as the music gets crafted. Despite the darker subject matter and instrumental subtexts, the Foo Fighter’s new album, But Here We Are, grips you with the sheer emotional force of the vocals detailing these stressors, these emotions that linger after the passing of a loved one. Its title comes off as defeated, like they don’t want to be around the drum set since the reminder of Hawkins will be everlasting. Though Josh Freese is their new drummer, Grohl plays the drums on the album, like he’s getting guided by Hawkins, who made the percussion feel more pertinent than laying down a reference drum beat to maneuver the overtures. But Here We Are left me shattered; I’ve lost five family members since the beginning of 2020, and like them, music is an outlet, and how it’s reflected allows it to become one of the most memorable rock albums in 2023.

Foo Fighters aren’t trying to sugarcoat what they’ve felt. They brought to life the influence and greatness of Taylor Hawkins through specialized performances not long after his passing, and those thoughts, whether celebratory of a remarkable life or demonstrative shift towards the darkness, knowing your friend is gone forever. In some ways, you can hear it from Dave Grohl’s emotional poignancy in how he hits the bass, snare, and cymbals with vigor, making it as if it is keeping the music together; it does. Bringing as much emphasis to this is the songwriting, which tackles loss through different perspectives and avenues to relay its effect, either instantly or through time. It’s an introspective reflection on lessons learned and the value of patience and grief, considering how deeply affected the Foo Fighters are, especially Dave Grohl, who can’t seem to escape an unreal landscape and retreat into reality. It’s as if he doesn’t want to accept it, and as the title says, But Here We Are, the title song brings nuanced reflections which allow us to hear and witness how disillusioned one can be with loss.

That feeling gets heard immediately with the first song, “Rescued,” written by Grohl after the passing of Hawkins, which reflected how the band felt – dead inside, waiting for some spark to feel rejuvenated. Like he would sing in the pre-chorus and chorus, respectively, “Oh! Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?/Is this happenin’ now? … We’re all free to some degree to dance under the lights/I’m just waitin’ to be rescued, bring me back to life,” you get how frozen he is, within the context of trauma, by what to do now that death came and taken a member of a family; he once dealt through when Kurt Cobain committed suicide and soon found solace in music, as Grohl does here. We get taken through the wringer and get all these moments where the heart constantly hurts, you can’t help but feel affected. Yet, as it continues to relay, with its stagnant pacing, one thing is evident, there is directional fortitude. It’s one of their best works, feeling like a slight composite of their debut, except with more modernity and maturity. With that, the depth of the music becomes more profound, beyond the element of death, since these emotions come from various alleys.

Listening to Foo Fighters grieve and find acceptance is challenging, with these layers of trauma presenting themselves like acceptance and escapism. It’s an ongoing theme that switches between existing in the subtexts or direct, like in the song “Under You,” which sees Grohl’s struggles getting over Taylor Hawkin’s death, especially the notion of acceptance, getting relayed further in “Nothing At All.” Similarly, we hear this unique angle of contextual writing has the dimensions where the nail went down straight and allow the music to feel expansive without treading toward simplicity. Unfortunately, with all the turns, the album can’t seem to find its footing from a pacing standpoint. It becomes readily apparent in Grohl’s ode to Taylor Hawkins and his mother, Virginia Grohl, where his morbid sense of reality hits him hard. It’s like when someone tells themselves they’ve accepted the inevitable like one never knows when someone decides to be wreckless, and next thing you know, you’re pinned to the steering wheel.

Co-produced by Greg Kurstin, you can sense the little things that help round out the music to give it a poppier impact, despite it being far from it. You get some catchy melodic rhythms in the choruses, bridging the different instrumental layers of the emphatic notes, specifically the rangy percussion that is angry or weary without faltering in a transition. You can feel the ease of something more minimalist and dreary like “The Glass” transitioning into the livelier presence of “Nothing At All,” where Grohl fights acceptance – accepting Taylor Hawkins is gone is tougher than pushing the reminder that his spirit will forever be with you. Similarly, you hear it from the rougher rock notes of “Beyond Me” to the dreamy, shoegaze influenced “The Teacher,” which sees Grohl reflecting on lessons learned throughout his life from his mother. He drives home that impactful notion about making every moment count. It makes the album worth every minute of your time, despite the slight pacing issues and mundaneness of “Beyond Me.”

I couldn’t recommend this more; even with its heavy subject matter, you sense their presence and emotions, especially if you are a fan still mourning and feeling the loss of one of the best drummers. I hear you. It’s affected me too, but as I kept replaying the album more and more, the more I just kept loving the gravitas of the songwriting burgeoning through the emotionally potent instrumentations. I was shook, and I felt the love and familial bond they had throughout the album, opening the doors to the visceral depth of the music. Give it a listen, and let me know how you feel in the comments below.