Foo Fighters’ Your Favorite Toy is out April 24, and the lead material suggests the band has done something genuinely unexpected: they’ve made a record that sounds like it’s enjoying itself. After the years following Taylor Hawkins’ death in 2022, the grief record But Here We Are, and the gradual rebuilding of what a Foo Fighters show could feel like with a new drummer, this sounds like arrival at something.

Dave Grohl has always been most interesting when he’s not trying to be interesting, when he’s chasing a hook or a feel that made him obsessive in the first place. The album title is confrontational in the best way: a dare to engage with something on its own terms rather than as a critical object.

New drummer Josh Freese, who has played with everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Sublime to The Vandals over a career spanning four decades, was always going to be the right choice on pure technical grounds. The more interesting question was whether he’d fit the chemistry, and from what the singles suggest, the answer is yes. He plays with the kind of confidence that comes from having been in every situation a drummer can be in, which reads as ease rather than professionalism.

The 14-track album was produced by Greg Kurstin, who also produced But Here We Are. The continuity of the production relationship suggests Grohl wanted evolution rather than rupture, which is consistent with how the band has approached the post-Hawkins period generally.

Your Favorite Toy is out April 24.