Pink Scorching Chili Peppers have by no means executed something carefully. From their earliest albums as a throw-it-all-in-there band to their marathon multiplatinum information with Rick Rubin to the piling on of songs and concepts on their most up-to-date LPs, hunting down the great from the dangerous has been a part of the problem with the Los Angeles “Cannot Cease” hitmakers.
They’re nonetheless pushing towards boundaries on their twelfth album, Limitless Love, loading it with 17 songs that clock in at greater than 70 minutes. The Pink Scorching Chili Peppers nonetheless exist on a ’90s timeline the place CD limits are grazed and their model of genre-swapping alt-rock has a spot. Becoming then that golden-era guitarist John Frusciante is again for his third tour of responsibility with the band and his first album since 2006’s chart-topping Stadium Arcadium.
Limitless Love additionally marks the group’s first file with producer Rubin in a decade. (Their final album, 2016’s The Getaway, was produced by Hazard Mouse.) So the sensation of nostalgia is robust right here: a concerted and deliberate try at reclaiming the Blood Sugar Intercourse Magik and Californication glory days. At instances they get there – that is their greatest album since Stadium Arcadium – however there is not any getting across the unmistakable bloat.
From the beginning, it is familiar-sounding music: Opener “Black Summer season” remembers a lot of the band’s catalog after it obtained critical, and scored an unlikely hit, with “Underneath the Bridge” in 1991. “Right here After That” is highlighted by Flea’s rolling bass thumps underlying Anthony Kiedis’ conversational semi-raps. And “Aquatic Mouth Dance” combines their pre-breakthrough funk (with horns!) and a post-fame Kiedis-in-mature-mode vocal. And that is simply the primary 12 minutes.
However Limitless Love, maybe impressed and just a little shackled by the title, is heavy on ballads and songs that slip into ruminative holes. And Kiedis’ vocal tics are getting extra annoying as he will get older (see: “Poster Baby”). On the plus facet, Frusciante brings depth and pleasure to his solos, lifting even detached songs (like “The Nice Apes” and “Let ‘Em Cry”) to better heights, and the album’s center part is the Chili Peppers’ sturdiest set of songs in years. Occasional knuckleheaded lyrics apart, there’s life right here. However you may must dig a bit to uncover the rewards.
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Any dialogue of the High 100 ’90s Rock Albums must embody some grunge, and this one is not any totally different.
