Album Review: Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Getaway
When John Frusciante left the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2009 it was fair to assume that the group would be thrown into disarray. After all, when the guitarist first left the band in 1992 it resulted in only one album being released over the next 6 years, the disastrous One Hot Minute, where the band bent over backwards to fit in former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro at any cost.
However, 17 years divided these two events, and the band were in a far more stable state to absorb this loss than they were the first time. Josh Klinghoffer — a longtime Frusciante collaborator and a sideman on the Stadium Arcadium tour — stepped into the breach, and their 2011 album I’m With You was a mature effort, with Klinghoffer seamlessly blending into the band’s sound with with modest success.
That record marked the beginning of the band’s third act — with the group’s core membership facing 50 and marking the time with a move to a more mature sound - and therefore presumably moving to the traditional veteran rock band model of churning out records at regular intervals, with more and more devotion from their cult that any mainstream audience.
The Getaway — released in mid 2016 — continues this journey. However where I’m With You was slightly predictable this record shows some new wrinkles, and points to a new way forward for the band. Much of this has to do with the production — with Danger Mouse stepping in at the boards.
Subtlety has rarely been a Chili Pepper strength, but that is exactly what The Getaway has as its greatest virtue. From the subdued opening title track, to the hand claps and pianos on the first single Dark Necessities, through to the delicate intertwined guitar melodies of The Longest Wave, the first half of the record especially is a pleasant detour from the norm. The real triumph comes with the piano-led duo of The Hunter and Dreams of a Samurai, songs so deft and spacy that it’s hard to imagine another version of the band being able to produce these tracks, with or without Danger Mouse.
All this would make it sound like The Getaway a slyly musically adventurous and successful album, and to a certain extent it is. However, being a Red Hot Chili Peppers record Anthony Kiedis is of course at front and centre, and thus the listener’s ability to enjoy the album will likely be dictated by their feelings about the band’s lead vocalist. Kiedis is no more hammy than usual, and in fact he slightly dials back some of his previous histrionics and rarely raps here.
However — he still mentions California multiple times with no discernible sense of irony, rhymes ‘Aussie’ with ‘kamikaze’, sings a tribute to the sexiness of androids (‘I want to thank you and spank you upon your silver skin’) on Go Robot, and just generally delivers a number of lyrical couplets that would embarrass most 53-year-old men.
For those fully on board the Kiedis train already this is no problem, as they are well used to and probably even enjoy his shtick, but given how subtle and deftly other aspects of the album are put together under Danger Mouse’s guidance, he is still a distraction.
Ultimately perhaps the Red Hot Chili Peppers are not a band to go to if looking for blinding lyrical insight, and Kiedis’ weaknesses mar rather than ruin the record, which ultimately is enjoyable. Repeated listens across the album’s not insubstantial length can make the problems more apparent, but in general The Getaway illustrates a direction forward for the band, one that they will be likely able to follow for many more years — if they so wish.
