The fourth Foo Fighters album finally cemented the band’s core quartet, with ex-No Use for a Name guitarist Chris Shiflett joining the fold. Together with founder Dave Grohl, bassist Nate Mendel, and drummer Taylor Hawkins, he completed a central lineup that would remain firmly in place for two full decades, until Hawkins’ tragic death in 2022. Despite that crucial element clicking into place, the world-beating rock band endured a difficult birthing process for the album. After the protracted original recordings racked up a million-dollar price tag, those were jettisoned in favor of a rapid-fire two-week session in Grohl’s Virginia home studio. Even that positive final result followed both Hawkins’ recovery from a heroin overdose and Grohl’s influential stint playing with Queens of the Stone Age on tour and on their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf, halting Foo Fighters’ progress along the way. But you wouldn’t guess at such difficulties from the finished version of One By One. Grohl sounds downright recharged from his QOTSA run, cutting loose with more ragged vocals on the bruising opener “All My Life” and the more melody-forward “Disenchanted Lullaby.” Even when he’s cool and collected on “Low,” the band’s itchy, propulsive interplay approaches metal territory. “Have It All” and other tracks flex newly muscled hard rock, with the players operating in absolute lockstep. Tightly coiled hooks abound, spiking the album’s radio-friendly polish with many gnarly rewards. And this being a Foo Fighters record, there will always be outliers along the way. Slower and weirder than the rest of the batch, “Tired of You” sees Queen guitarist Brian May lend a surreal melodic presence to match Grohl’s wrung-out, almost hypnotic delivery as the bandleader turns a lovelorn lament into a darkly romantic devotional. Stretching almost to eight minutes, the closing “Come Back” revels in billowing distortion before taking several quiet-loud zigzags, complete with a long stretch of delicate acoustic guitar and then a robust climb back to catharsis. Winning the band a second consecutive Best Rock Album prize at the Grammys, One By One reignited the full power of Foo Fighters’ touring delivery after the softening effect of 1999’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose. And as Grohl promised with his mantra “I will come back” on that parting anthem, these guys would definitely stick around for many years to come, becoming part of modern rock’s very firmament.