Red Hot Chili Peppers release psychedelic elixir

Rock giants present their new album

The new non-format album of the Red Hot Chili Peppers “Return of the Dream Canteen” reminds us that rock and roll originally began not with show business and greed, and not even with a hanger, like a theater, but with a great love for music, which cannot be kept in check by the classical set of musical instruments and sound standards.

The record set absolutely new standards of quality and musical meaning for the entire pop field in general. On the eve of his 60th birthday, soloist Anthony Kiedis recalls what his dream of music was like as a child, goes in search of himself and seeks to fix everything and be in time.

In a world accustomed to accepting the beautiful in drops of singles, on which, as a dose (solely for the sake of profit), music lovers are addicted to the bigwigs, the uncontrolled generosity of RHCP, releasing the second double album in a year, looks like milky rivers overflowing their banks and turbulent streams flooded jelly banks. While listening to a dream disc from the four “hot peppers”, one gets the feeling that there, across the ocean, the guys know firsthand the Russian proverb “once such a booze has gone, cut the last cucumber”. “Cut” mercilessly and a lot, seventeen tracks of four or six minutes, pouring over it all with burning guitar overflows of solo parts.

Since we are talking about a return to a certain dream, which is mentioned in the title of the album, the design of the disc has a corresponding one. Pink-blue sky, transparent clouds, bubbles, amorphous, funky colorful letters. The musicians from the cover take us back to the hippie times of the late 60s and early 70s and do not deceive expectations with the internal content. Here is everything that we (and they) loved so much in a shaggy childhood, dressed in ripped jeans and adorned with pacific earrings in the ears. The record turned out to be soothing and completely disarming, and it came out absolutely on time, like an elixir for calming souls agitated by various social crises.

“Return of the Dream Canteen is our tribute to the creative flourishing of the psychedelic desert. “Something about the way the four of us wander through a time and place where there is less clarity than usual leads to a lot of music,” the band said in a statement. “John’s insistence on treating each song as if it were equal to the next has helped us realize more songs than some would ever think to do with them. In a world where single track releases are typical, we decided to release double records in a row. And we are good at it.

As a perfect time machine, music has an amazing quality to instantly immerse you in the right atmosphere and pull memories from the deepest wells of memory. It’s nice to join the jazzy beats of the track My Cigarette, instantly throwing you to the dimly lit outskirts of the big city, reflecting infrequent passers-by in the wet asphalt of the night. And you immediately want to smoke, even if you haven’t smoked for fifteen years … Or ride a bike with the Shoot Me a Smile track, in its disarming atmosphere of magic and bliss of adolescence, when you hang out after school around the district on a sunny day, just not to lock yourself in stuffy rooms … It seems that they recorded songs for all possible occasions, including a completely win-win option – the infinitely long “La La La”, under which you can arrange at least the first dance of the bride and groom at the wedding, at least put it on the final horizontal of the first date …

Kiedis and company were initially opposed to the brutality and aggression of punk rock, inspired by the psychedelic avant-garde Defunkt that RHCP’s oldest roots still feed on. On this record, they continue their rhythmic funk experiments, mixing them with country-style dialogues and modern silent indies in In the Snow and Eddie.

A very superficial and inexperienced listener would say that the new RHCP dream album is a cross between the early The Doors and the late The Beatles with an admixture of Bob Marley. It’s easier to say what this disc doesn’t look like than what it looks like. And he looks like everything that has ever inspired us in western rock and roll culture (including, of course, ourselves), and this is attractive. “Peppers” have not changed a millimeter. In all their work, indecently Californian buzz, relaxation and peace-friendship-chewing gum with the smell of strawberry fields still shine through.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28893 dated October 19, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Released a psychedelic elixir