Band:	Dream Widow
Album:	Dream Widow
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	March 2022

01. Encino
02. Cold
03. March Of The Insane
04. The Sweet Abyss
05. Angel With Severed Wings
06. Come All Ye Unfaithful
07. Becoming
08. Lacrimus Dei Ebrius

Here it is, the (second) Dave Grohl metal album.

Dream Widow received quite a bit of hype due to the novelty of it being a metal album from Dave Grohl, which is a bit surprising considering Probot was a thing. Admittedly, the Probot album was released nearly 20 years ago, so there’s Foo Fighters fans alive who weren’t born when it came out and may not yet have discovered it. Still, Dream Widow is clearly more strongly connected to Foo Fighters, considering the concept of the project emerged in the form of a fictional band in the film Studio 666, which stars the members of the Foo Fighters, before Grohl took the opportunity to record an album under the Dream Widow moniker. Unfortunately, what was an intriguing side-project for Grohl has ultimately become overshadowed by the passing of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins on the day of its release. Such an event does make the idea of critiquing a record seem very pointless in the grand scheme of things, but the Dream Widow record is still here to be appreciated, for all its strengths and weaknesses.

Some of Grohl’s metal influences can be recognized in the musicians that guested on the Probot album, which featured the likes of Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura), Mike Dean (Corrosion Of Conformity), Wino (ex-Saint Vitus) and Snake (Voivod). Those same influences can be heard on Dream Widow, where thrash, doom, sludge and stoner can be heard, albeit not at the same time. This album is something of a compilation of styles; “Encino” is a vicious opening to the record, a brief burst of punky thrashy aggression along with some dirtier alt grooves, and “March Of The Insane” takes the thrash metal in an even more classically 80s direction. Elsewhere, “Cold” is a brooding sludge-tinged doom cut with some bluesy guitar leads in the chorus, while “Becoming” is a more ambitious and eerie spin on doom, mixing up grim trudges with some faster sequences that make surprisingly great use out of clean vocals. “Lacrimus Dei Ebrius”, clocking in at just over 10 minutes, is a very ambitious closer from Grohl, one that is mainly rooted in stoner metal with its swinging percussion, slick grooves and pounding marches, but one that does also have some unexpected extreme metal detours.

That’s a lot of styles for one album, and it’s both a feather in the cap of and a slight hindrance to Dream Widow. On the one hand, it’s clear Grohl has a proper appetite for these different metal styles; the thrash sounds quintessentially thrash, and the slower, groovier styles come off nicely. On the flip side, most of these tracks are decent yet somewhat unexceptional renditions of the styles; I enjoy them, but don’t find myself particularly engaged by them. The real exception to this for me is “Becoming”; some of the variety and ingenuity in this song is seriously impressive considering how scattered the record is stylistically otherwise, particularly the contrast between the plodding, nasty doom parts and the captivating way the busy lead guitar and mournful clean guitars interact during the faster bridge. “Lacrimus Dei Ebrius” does also exhibit similar intelligent ambition, but is slightly let down by its scattered nature and the loss of flow that comes as a result.

In between all these different experiments with metal genres comes a trio of tracks that go in a different direction. These three feel genuinely like ‘Foo Fighters making metal’ songs, from the alt-heavy riffs to the very 00s FF choruses; the fact Grohl’s on vocals makes the resemblance between the choruses of “The Sweet Abyss” and “Angel With Severed Wings” and those of his main band clear, but I feel like even if it was a different vocalist singing them, one would hear a similarity. They make for quite an intriguing glimpse into a world where Foo Fighters decided to follow up the heaviness of songs such as “All My Life” and “Low” with a real delve into harder musical territories, and I can imagine fans of the group’s earlier material getting some decent enjoyment out of them.

Overall, I don’t think Dream Widow is a great album, but I also don’t think it was necessarily intended to be a major deal for Grohl; it seems more that he just took the opportunity that arose from the Studio 666 music to explore some musical passions that the direction of his main band has prevented him from giving real time to until now. I imagine it’ll be a one-off detour for him (although following the passing of Hawkins, one can only wonder how this will affect the future of both the Foo Fighters and Grohl generally as a musician), and it's been a generally decent one.

RIP Taylor Hawkins 1972-2022