After a pretty huge, and seemingly never ending five year wait, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album is finally here, I'm With You was released at the very end of August this year. I'd say it's worth the wait.
Now I don't want to make constant references to the previous album, so I'll try and get it all out of the way now. Let's put it simple: Stadium Arcadium was a bit rubbish. The band for some reason decided to take about five decent songs, make two more bland versions of each and put it all together to make one fairly abysmal double album, where a poor standard album would have sufficed. That album lacked a great deal of what makes the Chilis the Chilis; call that funk, soul or even just a general care for what they're doing. And I honestly believe that it is because of that album that John Frusciante, for me one of the best guitarists out there, left the band, and I think it's fair to say you'd be forgiven for thinking that that may have spelled the end for RHCP.
But praise Jesus, Buddah, Allah and Kwanzaabot it wasn't. The three long-serving members of the band regrouped and recruited Josh Klinghoffer, their long-time touring guitarist, who sounds a little bit like Frusciante, but with a great deal of his own style thrown in there on top. Good move.
The new album sounds a lot more like By The Way than the last effort, but this time with a bit more of a funk and disco influence, which goes back to the style the band is known for from the late 1980s. There's everything you'd expect from the usual three here: Anthony Kiedis' vocals are as smooth and pleasing as ever; Flea's bass lines are bouncy and funky enough; and Chad Smith's drumming is as unobtrusive yet impressive as ever. And for the new boy, it's a pretty good debut. His style, like mentioned earlier, is a little like Frusciante in places, however, he's quite fond of a much lower, reverb-y sound, which is actually pretty exciting in a weird way, as we're not really used to hearing that on a Chilis song.
However, there are a couple of drawbacks here. While Kiedis' vocals are good, some of the lyrics are just plain bizarre. I'm not really questioning an art form here, but... "Just a lot of words on an old brick wall,
Rob a lot of banks got a pedigree scrawl. Put my peg into your square, Run around like we just don't care." Yep. My thoughts exactly.
Similarly, Flea, whilst producing nice enough and indeed impressive enough basslines, isn't really pushed into anything new. I know he's been at it for the best part of thirty years now, but his efforts on this album are pretty much the same as on the last one. Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but you can't help but wonder if he's been taking a bit of a back seat whilst the new guy settles a bit more. Then again, I could be, and probably am, extremely wrong, as his playing certainly suits the album.
The whole effort runs together very nicely, from the storming opener to the softer ending, I can honestly say there isn't a track on there that I don't enjoy. Particular praise has to go to Monarchy Of Roses, Ethiopia, and the lead single The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie. Not even the loss of Frusciante's vocals has dragged the band down either, as Klinghoffer provides oddly eerie harmonies in his wake.
I'm With You is a solid return to form for a band that desperately needed it. It's not fantastic, but it's nice and steady, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think I believe the band when they say that this feels almost like a completely new group, their sound is back to a similar level as it was in the late 1990s-early 2000s, but with subtle differences that've been thrown into the mix by Mr Klinghoffer.
4/5 - It's not a masterpiece, but I really enjoy it quite a lot.
