“We just want to leave ‘em wanting less,” drummer Chad Smith has said about the 13th Red Hot Chili Peppers album. He was joking, but seriously, how much of a fan do you need to be to wade through two 17 track albums in the space of six months? This collection follows swiftly on from Unlimited Love, which was generally regarded as a return to form when it went to number one around the world in April. But not since the 28-song monster that was Stadium Arcadium in 2006 has the band been so badly in need of an editor.
We can blame the veteran Californian quartet’s desire to flood the world with funk rock on a couple of factors: they’re understandably enthusiastic after welcoming guitarist John Frusciante back into the foursome after 16 years away. He’s played on all their most popular albums, including Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication, and is given plenty of space to wrestle with his instrument here, offering long, wild solos towards the end of Eddie (a tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen) and Afterlife. Thanks to his comeback they were filling stadiums for the first time in almost two decades this summer.
