The Getaway
An alt-rock institution finds sure footing and fresh starts with producer Danger Mouse. For a big-ticket band, the Chili Peppers remain appealingly stripped-down, mixing their lean, punky approach with disco (“Go Robot”), golden-age hip-hop (“The Getaway”), psychedelia (“This Ticonderoga,” “Detroit”), and slow-burning funk (the Elton John-featuring “Sick Love”). As with the rest of the band’s post-*Californication* phase, the sound remains rhythmic (credit the skeleton-key wrecking crew of Flea and drummer Chad Smith) but the mood is melancholic, introverted, and a little lovelorn—the reflections of party boys reckoning the bittersweetness of middle age.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' eleventh album is their first since 1989’s Mothers’ Milk without Rick Rubin behind the boards, opting instead for Danger Mouse and Nigel Godrich.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ sound has always added different touches and flavors as their lineup changed—Hillel Slovak provided more pure funk; John Frusciante gave the band a melodic edge; Dave Navarro a heavier, almost psychedelic side—but this group, the one with former Gnarls Barkley, Beck, and Christina Aguilera…
Red Hot Chili Peppers have become something of a self-parody, as rearward-facing as they come. The perennial whipping boys could be getting a harsh treatment, but ‘The Getaway’ gets them nowhere.
The big story surrounding The Getaway is that, 25 years since the Red Hot Chili Peppers achieved their artistic and commercial breakthrough...
Though now a more polarizing band than at any other time in their history (cue "that" Nick Cave quote getting pulled out at any available opportunity by haters), there's clearly still much love in the world for Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Ah yes, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We know what they’re all about: searing funk jams, bawdy raps and a general over-obsession with female genitalia,
Who’d have thought this barmy bunch of Californian dudes, who formed a band as a joke in 1983, would still be with us in 2016?
The indestructible funk-rockers give a nod to their past. CD new music review by Russ Coffey