Foo Fighters: Skin And Bones : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Since his old band made the greatest unplugged album ever, Dave Grohl deserves credit for simply having the stones to release a stripped-down Foo Fighters disc. But Skin and Bones -- recorded live during three recent Los Angeles shows -- lacks the revelatory power of its predecessor: Grohl sometimes seems unwilling to stick with bare-bones arrangements, pushing his giant band (which included the Wallflowers' Rami Jaffee, violinist Petra Haden and former Foo Pat Smear) into unnecessary big-rock crescendos in the final bars. Still, the album's best and most restrained moments -- the mostly guitar-and-voice opener, "Razor"; the plaintive, folky take on "Big Me"; and the climactic, slow-building "Everlong" -- illustrate how Grohl's songwriting gift moved him out of Kurt Cobain's shadow in the first place.