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.
Wavelength
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