This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
As Sheryl Crow once informed us, a change will do you good. It sure seems to have worked for Dave Grohl.
The Foo Fighters singer and guitarist put his band on hold for much of the past year to take a job drumming for Queens Of The Stone Age. And judging by the sound and fury of his band’s gritty fourth CD One By One, the experience both rubbed Grohl the right way and rubbed off on him. More than a few of One By One’s 11 tracks — especially the chugging leadoff single All My Life — skew closer to the robotic, riff-laden desert-rat rock of QOTSA than, say, the polished popcore of older hits like Learn To Fly or Breakout. Even some of the more low-key tracks are enveloped in a druggy, fuzzed-out haze that distinguishes them from typical studio balladry. I don’t know whether that means he’s inching closer to his Nirvana roots — though it does seem some of these songs might be about Kurt Cobain — or nudging himself toward a rockier new future. Either way, it makes One By One the band’s rawest and most immediate disc since Grohl’s one-man debut. And if Queens Of The Stone Age had anything to do with it, allow me to be the first to extend my gratitude to Josh Homme and co.
