Glenn Hughes
Music For The Divine

Myths rarely disappoint, and when they objectively do a little, we usually see and hear nothing but the well-known greatness of the artist, but this case is not one of those.

Glenn has not lost a decibel of his ultra-expressive voice and returns this year with a beautiful new album. We last left him singing “The Spell” and “I Go Insane” accompanied by the guitar earthquake of Tony Iommi, and we find him again in a decidedly more funky guise with “Music For the Divine.”

The backbone of the band sees the great return of “Peperoncino” Chad Smith, defined in an interview by Glenn as: “the greatest funk drummer of all time,” followed also (and this is the news) by the mind and guitar of Red Hot John Frusciante. For Hughes, pioneer of funk rock, it's an invitation to a wedding and Frusciante’s touch completes, in a determining way, a very enjoyable ensemble. The album opens with a distorted guitar intro, which gradually rises in intensity until it blossoms into the classic syncopated Red riff, while the chorus is 100% seventies.
The second track “Steppin On” is decidedly more rough and with Zeppelin-like rhythms, with magnificent successive solos by Frusciante and Marsch. The great difference in timbre and style facilitates their immediate recognition: light distortion and rough touch for the first, dark and jazzier sounds for the second.

Chad Smith is the protagonist in the third track, titled “Monkey Man,” which really seems written by Anthony Kiedis and the gang. It's time for an acoustic piece, “This House,” an excellent rock ballad. It follows with “You Got Soul,” increasingly funky, increasingly engaging the slap of Hughes supported by the two wild guitars.
Again an acoustic, again a ballad, and an ever more intense musical atmosphere. The rule of alternation now seems to prevail within the tracklist: “Black Light” violently catapults us once again into a funky hell, but next we find a splendid version of “Nights In White Satin” by the Moody Blues, historic group of prog-rock pioneers, superbly interpreted by “The Voice of Rock”.

Sound weighted down and usual wah wah abuse for Frusciante in “Too High,” the ninth track. Melodies and compelling rhythm merge in “This Is How I Feel,” an excellent preparatory track for the closing track, a gentle and soft farewell from a great artist.

I have run out of adjectives, so what else to say if not “The rock will never die!!!”