Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication (Vinyl 2xLP)
Following a string of unsatisfactory replacements (including former Jane’s Addiction alum Dave Navarro), Californication - the band’s seventh album – saw them reunited with both errant guitarist John Frusciante (hauled out of a long and debilitating heroin addiction) and producer Rick Rubin, whose mixture of commercial nous and sonic smarts helped make 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik their breakthrough set.
It’s a welcome reunion: Frusciante’s playing, in particular – tight, yet lyrical – fits these songs like a second skin, lending them a sensual sort of ease that is perfectly in keeping with the reckless hedonism of their lyrics. The songs themselves are much the same mixture of adrenalised swagger and high-tensile funk as ever.
The diverse album features an in-tune combination of harder rocking pieces and softer tunes. All in all you say that Californication is a comeback album of a special kind and truly in the vein of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
- Around The World
- Parallel Universe
- Scar Tissue
- Otherside
- Get On Top
- Californication
- Easily
- Porcelain
- Emit Remmus
- I Like Dirt
- This Velvet Glove
- Savior
- Purple Stain
- Right On Time
- Road Trippin'