Almost not bearable.

They've always been raw'ish.  Not really for critical listenting...for system and recording quality.  More about the actual music.  I love them but not their recordings so much.  he he

I find new recordings to be so so in general. Is it because it is too expensive to do a top production? Back in the days artists would spend weeks in studios. One of them was a world-renowed a few km to where i live. The Police, Rush, Bowie, Cat Stevens and many others would immerse themselves at Le Studio. 

I listen mainly to vinyl and find it us usually not worth buying new recordings because of poor quality. With a few exceptions. Otherwise I stream the new releases. Not worth the investment unless I am certain it is a high quality recording.

They definitely do not suck. 

I listened to it last night.  It's not Supertramp/Crime of the Century (huge dynamic range to say the least).  But I think it sounds like they wanted it to sound. I've heard worse in terms being intended for ear-pods. 

Their songwriting has really matured and this was a self-aware throwback.  The sound was deliberate to the mood of the music.  Minor Threat and Bad Brains weren't trying to produce like Supertramp either. 

Actually, I've always thought their first LP sounded pretty thin.  Maybe that's  what they wanted.

I find it interesting that there is a similar theme between my thoughts and those of MapMan, where he has made the most posts on Audiogon and I have made the fewest, at least as of my posting and indicated on this thread. I am not trying to steal any of his glory, expertise or viewpoints.  I do find his openness to other interpretations of how music can be appreciated to be refreshing.

Recorded music is what a production team and the artist(s) decide they want to offer their audience.  So is the sound heard at a live performance, but often the performers have less control over the result due to venue acoustics, weather, etc. 

Listeners will never all agree on how good the result achieved is for a particular session. At least in your own listening environment you have a modest ability to adapt the sound to something a bit closer to what you prefer, even if it does not match the offered tonal or spatial balance of what they produced.  

To this, some viewpoints will call any modification heresy, others will call it taste. The goal is to find performances that the listener enjoys, and if something different comes out of the speakers, cans, earbuds, etc. it is the listener’s option to enjoy, or, if necessary, adjust or outright reject the sound if it does not suit their preference at the moment.  

In this case, the sound that made the Foo Fighters popular a quarter-century ago was in some ways experimental, and has since evolved, just like the recording process and the way it is reproduced.  Many on this forum have more resolving systems now than were available to artists and studio professionals back then. Tastes have also evolved, and if this recording is trying to evoke the sound they were striving for back then, it is a choice. Perhaps different from what they could currently produce, but a valid, if perhaps less popular choice.  It is their choice to make and the listeners’ choice to be drawn back to yesteryear or be disappointed by it. 

When I listen to music of any genre, I adjust the sound to the way I can enjoy it the most at the moment through what I am listening to it on. Settings vary based on where I am, whether the source is vinyl, shellac, Reel-to-Reel, or digital. Whether I have been in a quiet room or an aircraft recently it will significantly change my settings, and I am grateful to be able to. In some cases, I want to hear the session as close to what the artist seems to want to present. Even so, all settings may not be "flat" because I live in an imperfect world.  On other occassions, I want to be transported back to what I remember from one of their live performances I enjoyed decades ago from the less-than-great seat I could afford at the time, but that is the head space I want to be in.

I cannot always achieve what I remember, and some releases offer a totally different take on the session. I cannot fault their choice to offer something different.  How many solos by Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler have there been, and how many are identical?  They are all different based on the venue, his mood and the audience or lack of it as both ambience and feedback to his mind as he lives in the music in the moment.  I for one value the variety of options. I expect the Foo Fighters and their production team do too, even if it is a moment lost to time.