Review Summary: California's legendary modern rock mainstays return to form with an album overpacked with strong musicianship and dated ideas. We may be happy to hear them return, but they sound as if they've spent too much time in the sun.
As a lifelong Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, I take no great pleasure in writing this review. But I feel like I must – like I owe it to the band who kick started my interest in music as a middle schooler, like I owe it to the manic young man who found connection in their energy and drive, like I owe it to the adult who has returned to this quartet’s discography for a heady dose of nostalgia on difficult days.
In March of 2022, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their first new album recorded with their classic, crushing lineup of Kiedis, Balzary, Frusciante, & Smith in 16 years. It’s a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album! The gang’s all here! And…
It’s fine.
It’s just fine. Which, in a sense, is the most crushing critical blow I could aim against a band as venerable and vital as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Chili Peppers have meant a lot of things to a lot of people: a lightning rod for manic punks, and touchstone for modern pop sensibilities, the soundtrack to dorm room headbanging sessions, and the forlorn companion to those who have loved and lost. But at their heart, they are a band about romanticism. At its most gauche, its most raw, and its most real.
You see, lurking under every pulse pounding chorus or emotional bridge, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ music has consistently signaled to its listeners a single consistent message: you are not alone. Be it through their hits on the isolation of addiction like Under The Bridge or Can’t Stop, or through signals as overt as album titles, like 2011’s I’m With You – connection has been at the heart of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ music. Lurking under the crystalline beads of a sex-sweatened brow, between sand encrusted toes, and beneath sun-cracked skin is a certain wisdom: a wisdom of embracing the beauty and life of the here and now. To head bang and bone and beat and bleat and cry under an eternal Californian sun – that’s where true connection lies.
Although this seems like a heady line for a band like the Red Hot Chili Peppers its important to note that, more often than not, this is accomplished through a carefully cultivated aesthetic and eternal presence in the pop culture sphere. It’s not a carefully crafted result of genius or innovative songwriting, but an essential byproduct of its vibe and ubiquity. And what could better embody romanticism – a celebration of emotion, imagination, and nature – than that?
Which is where we run into a problem. There is no romance, in that sense of the word, in 2022’s ‘Unlimited Love.’ Ironic, right? That sense of vitality, the balance of the tender and the manic, is largely unrealized on this attempted return to form for the nearly 40 year old band. Don’t be mistaken: the musicianship here is great – often stellar. Many tracks here are compositionally quite interesting, merging Morphine-esque brass powered jazz with tight Parilament-like funk. And the writing on this lengthy release is quite strong, even vulnerable in places.
But all of the elements that work here rarely all manifest at once: when the grooves really hook you, the lyricism tends to fall flat. When the writing is at its most tender, the instrumentation often feels the most flacid. For every highlight – like the crushing “The Heavy Wing” or touching “Veronica” – there are three or four duds. This bloat of fumbling mid tempo pseudo-ballads instill a sense of malaise, rather than the expected raucous romanticism, as if the band’s sound has lingered too long in the ever present Californian sun.
As a result, we are left with the first Red Hot Chili Peppers album that sounds truly dated upon release. The band has always had the talent of sounding perpetually fresh – be it through the richly textured pop reinvention of Californication, the unexpected tenderness of I’m With You, or the sleek electronic hip hop sheen of The Getaway. You could count on the fact that no matter how many years roll on, fresh material from the Red Hot Chili Peppers would always sound contemporary, if not even a little ahead of the curve. Not so, here. Here, that spark of life & that hidden wisdom … they aren’t gone in ‘Unlimited Love,’ but they find themselves unfortunately buried by tired (if comforting) routine.
Is this the destiny of all bands that approach the 40 year mark? It certainly isn’t caused by any lack of talent. Perhaps their sound has simply run its course.
Only time will tell.
