Review Summary: The Core Four of the Red Hot Chili Peppers reunite to jam out in this unambitious but high-floor effort
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a rocker knocking on the door of 60 years old. You’re a member of a rock band going on its 40th year, one that’s evolved from darlings of the local underground to chart-topping, stadium-filling icons of the mainstream. You’ve lost dear friends to addiction, and come frighteningly close to losing others. You found stability and sobriety while hitting an extended commercial and creative peak, only to be derailed by the second exit of your ingenious but mercurial guitarist. You forged ahead, enlisting a young, creative, energetic musician on guitar, but things never quite fell into place. Now, after more than ten years, your dear friend has returned to the fold, reuniting the group in the unlimited love and joy of playing music together for hours, days, weeks, and months on end.
This reunion is all lovely, feel-good stuff from a human/storytelling perspective, but from a listener’s perspective it’s worth asking: what kind of music should we expect to hear on Unlimited Love? Is this a group of musicians that feels pressure to create, innovate, and push sonic boundaries? Or is this a group of folks who know they’ve got financial stability and nothing to prove musically, and are simply committed to enjoying the ride and jamming out with the de facto family they’ve formed over the decades?
Unlimited Love is very much the latter kind of album. At its core, Unlimited Love is an unambitious jam rock album put together by a group of musicians with boundless talent, effortless chemistry, and eclectic musical tastes, produced by a man famously reluctant to breathe the words “no” or “cut”. In musical terms, this means that the band will identify a central groove and stick with it throughout the (often overlong) runtime of a song. They’ll add some genre-mashing flavors and embellishments, with specific emphasis on funk and punk, but songs seldom depart from the central rhythmic/tonal hook. Highlights of the album are generally those with stronger hooks and shorter runtimes (“Here Ever After”, “Whatchu Thinkin’”) or those rare ones that break from the formula (“The Heavy Wing”, “Veronica”). Predictably, the weaker ones either lack an interesting hook (“She’s a Lover”, “Bastards of Light”) or overstay their welcome (“The Great Apes”, “Aquatic Mouth Dance”). This latter issue is endemic: runtime, both on the album as a whole and on individual songs, is the album’s greatest liability; this listener can’t help but wonder but how tight and energetic this album could be if they went with a producer willing to step up with the occasional “Hey guys, maybe there’s no need for that third verse here.”
The band’s raw talent, of course, helps pick up some slack where the songwriting falters. Flea and Chad Smith remain a creative, airtight force in the rhythm section, and the engineering and mixing on the album is predictably excellent. But, while all 4 band members and the rest of the studio team make memorable contributions on Unlimited Love, it’s the performances by guitarist John Frusciante and vocalist Anthony Keidis that warrant the most discussion. John, for his part, unleashes a dizzying array of styles, tones, and accents in this album, picking up right where the guitar-centric Stadium Arcadium left off. In a non-exhaustive list of styles, you’ve got classic, staccatoed funk licks (“Aquatic Mouth Dance”, “She’s a Lover”); thunderous punk/metal riffs (“These Are the Ways”, “The Heavy Wing”, the bridge of “Bastards of Light”); delicate fingerpicking (“Tangelo”); stadium rock (“Black Summer”, “The Heavy Wing”); electronica/psychadelia (“Not the One”, “Let ‘Em Stay”); and, perhaps most engagingly, full-out blues (“It’s Only Natural”, the outro of “Veronica”). Followers of Frusciante’s solo material will find plenty of callbacks to “The Empyrean” sprinkled into tracks like “Whatchu Thinkin’”, “Let ‘Em Cry”, and “It’s Only Natural”. For guitar enthusiasts, this album is a treasure trove of creative licks, progressions, and solos, which helps to (but doesn’t entirely) compensate when songs get bogged down by formula or overlong runtimes.
Now on to Anthony. The vocalist’s performance is, at best, a mixed bag. Lyrically, he runs the well-worn Anthony gamut from charmingly nonsensical (“Aquatic Mouth Dance”) to abrasively and cringily nonsensical (“Poster Child”) to cringily horny (“Here Ever After”, “She’s a Lover”) to touchingly sincere (“Tangelo”, “Not the One”). It’s vocally and melodically, though, where he can drag down the album. Throughout Unlimited Love, and specifically in an uninterrupted 4-song streak on the back half of the album, Anthony steadfastly refuses to choose vocal notes that aren’t clearly telegraphed by the chords. Where he strives for variety, as in the plodding rap rhythm of “Poster Child” and... pirate voice?... of “Black Summer”, these choices tend to feel more desperate than inspired. And, while Anthony’s vocal chops have never quite matched his frontman charisma, Father Time has crept into the man’s vocal chords, leaving melodic vocals feeling more strained and hollow than they did in yesteryear.
As a whole, Unlimited Love is an unambitious but high-floor effort from a fourpiece that boasts too much talent, too many influences, and too much experience to ever create an album that’s outright unworthy of a listen. Listeners may yearn for a more ambitious, catchy effort like Blood Sugar Sex Magik or Californication. Personally, this listener can’t help but wonder what would happen if the band members ditched the hair dye and directed their talents at crafting more mature, reflective, atmospheric sounds. Still, if you set those sorts of expectations aside and listen to Unlimited Love on its own terms, you’ll be left with an enjoyable, fun album with highlights worthy of multiple listens.
Highlights:
The Heavy Wing
Here Ever After
Veronica
It's Only Natural
Not the One
