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Rating: Those four rascals mesmerized me when I was young and defenseless. At ten years old, I wondered what on earth they were doing aboard that Pontiac in the middle of the desert; I couldn't quite understand why that song kept playing on MTV. Then I saw them again a few months later, they were inside a video game and it was fun to rediscover every time the outcome of that absurd match.
It was a brief, incomplete rite of passage: it was not yet time for rock, in my parents' house there were no records of that genre. The discovery was, as often happens, in hindsight. When I was in eighth grade, a new video appeared (a crazy cab driver kidnapped the singer) and then I made the connection. That's how love was born, as a more thoughtful, albeit teenage, recomposition of a childish fascination.
Soon it became an obsession, and once the first stone was set, the next logical step was to expand the horizons, to learn. Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Clash: the high school years, reading magazines and online reviews (the discovery of Debaser), the desire to emulate, and writing my first articles. A collection of songs, guitars, albums bought sight unseen at Ricordi in the Duomo.
In 2006, with the next album, I was perhaps a bit arrogant, in a few years I had become overindulgent with music. Compared to the blind faith of my younger self, I now harbored a different critical vein, but one that I knew how to silence in the face of such a carnal passion. The concert at the Forum in Milan was beautiful; I was a few meters away from Frusciante. Desperate joy of living.
Then that's it, or almost. In 2009, I held the band's funeral, faced with John's second farewell. A last gasp, almost posthumous, in 2011: the album spun in the car stereo and my girlfriend at the time liked it quite a lot. A compromise. But it was like picking on a corpse, or worse, going to bed with it. Meanwhile, my soundscapes drifted away, held together only by that clump of memories and sensations from my youth (and that is not insignificant).
In 2019, Frusciante's return upset the perspectives of many fans or former ones, now dormant or almost. It was an occasion to dust off some tracks and listening today with greater detachment, I perceive a compositional happiness, a purely pop sharpness that clearly explains their success.
It would be naive now to try to convince someone of the worthiness of the latest album, not because it is actually not respectable, but due to a certain negative reputation that, sometimes deservedly, they have acquired for a slice of the audience. And I'm not really interested in refuting its flaws because they are evident and undeniable, but simply at this age (mine I mean, let alone theirs) there is no more time to debate and argue about what isn't; much better to value what is.
The Red Hot of 2022 are the mature, synthetic, almost syncretic version of themselves. The pieces seem like collages of the varied styles they have traversed. A spontaneous collage though, not a calculated juxtaposition. These are songs born from jam sessions, with dozens more already ready. Pop, rock, funk songs, with a sprinkle of jazz, some hard solos, Beach Boys-like backing vocals (less than in the past), trumpet digressions, almost Beatlesque intimate ballads.
Each piece contains multiple souls within itself, opposing forces but reordered according to a less manneristic and predictable compositional style compared to the latest releases with Frusciante. Here the guitarist sheds the role of the virtuoso focal point (solos in adequate number) and dons that of the fine arranger, who chooses with skill every sound nuance, who raises the guitar's reverb or sharpens it when necessary, but also knows how to insert synth breaks and various amenities, without the obsession of showing off his skills. This maturity of the guitarist reflects on the other three, who deliver very dignified, almost surprising performances. A wise, balanced, fresh album, without the anxiety of reaching the top of the charts.
Tracklist
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