Kiedis is in “Antoine the Swan” mode throughout the album, revisiting the band’s dormant P-Funk influence implicitly as he sings out of the side of his mouth and explicitly in the “Sir Nose D Voidoffunk” vocal pitch-shifting that opens “Afterlife.” In a cute twist, he tries to convince a love interest not to move to Los Angeles in “Bella,” and in “Tippa My Tongue,” he lays down a smoove melody, singing that he’s here to “pull your hair” in a way that is somehow incredibly sexy, not at all threatening, and a little nostalgic.
While some of these songs can feel regressive or at least undercooked on their own, they’re reframed by the open-hearted sadness that takes over the album’s second half. “My Cigarette” interpolates Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” chorus over a noir bassline from Flea while Frusciante’s guitar rotates like a ceiling fan slowly turning in a hot room. They flash and flap like Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies in “Carry Me Home,” and Kiedis implores the listener not to “lose sight of this generous plan.” Even when they're trying to celebrate, the Chili Peppers sound exhausted by grief. Dead musicians show up often: Layne Stayley, Kiedis’ godfather Sonny Bono, possibly Bradley Nowell. Eddie Van Halen gets a whole song in his honor, though the seasick loneliness of the solo Frusciante rips through the song’s second half is a better tribute to Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel.
As always, the lyric sheet has more proper-noun-driven non-sequiturs than the average Family Guy episode (Who can say what the Dodgers pulling off a double play has to do with the rest of “The Drummer”?), but it’s occasionally possible to hear them as Kiedis’ way of getting around saying what he wants to say directly, or as a way of acknowledging that direct language can't capture the exuberance he feels. When it works, it can be strangely touching. Over percolating clouds of synth in “La La La La La La La La,” he promises his lover, “You’ll be Chong and I’ll be Cheech.” It’s a ridiculous lyric in an otherwise tender song, but its placement suggests that this is simply who he is and singing this way to his audience is a kind of intimacy.
Despite a few experiments—Josh Johnson’s halting sax solo in “My Cigarette,” the minimalist house percussion of “In the Snow”—Dream Canteen doesn’t represent a new direction, nor does it find the band taking the kinds of stylistic risks of the earlier Frusciante and Dave Navarro eras. It can feel chalky, its silliness toned down but not turned off; it makes these songs seem a touch distant and distracted. Not all legendary bands get the chance to age, and of all the groups in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, perhaps only their heroes in Van Halen and Parliament-Funkadelic have had to work as hard at carrying their wackiness into old age. While neither of those bands were able to turn their brilliant live shows into a legacy-consolidating late-career album, the Chili Peppers do have the creative and emotional capability to do so. Like Unlimited Love, Return of the Dream Canteen is not that album, but it does show the funky monks keeping the faith in their unquenchable spirit.
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Return of the Dream Canteen
From their multi-platinum peaks to their sad, desperate lows, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have always aspired toward a humble goal: to make you feel like you’re in the practice space with them, zoning out and goofing around, watching three exceptionally talented musicians and their extremely jacked singer spitballing ideas and keeping each other entertained. It’s an intimate bond that has fostered an intense connection among their fans. But it’s also opened them up for harsh scrutiny. When a relationship is built on these simple pleasures—jammin’ and rappin’ and slappin’ the bass, cramming your lyrics with cartoonish sex talk and rock history allusions, calling your reunion album Unlimited Love and really meaning it—it’s easy to feel you’ve outgrown it.
If audiences have sometimes felt that way, imagine how John Frusciante must feel. He first joined the Chili Peppers in the late 1980s, a teenage virtuoso helping shape his favorite group’s horned-up funk-rock into something more melodic. He quit in 1992 while touring their commercial breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik, then returned in 1998 as the mystical, fragile heart of their most fruitful period. Even if you don’t like the band, you can at least acknowledge that his inventive solos, layered vocal harmonies, and wide-ranging influences have always been attempts to make the music more artful and ambitious (or, at the very least, more like the Cure).
Unlimited Love—the Chili Peppers’ first album in six years and first with Frusciante in 16—recaptures their natural camaraderie. At once live-sounding and restrained, it’s Frusciante’s first record with the band where none of the songs sound remotely like anything on mainstream radio, which maybe speaks more to the times than the group’s efforts. The last time Frusciante recorded with them, on 2006’s double album Stadium Arcadium, their riffy, pile-driving anthems felt at home alongside hits by fellow, enduring Gen X peers like Foo Fighters and Green Day. On Unlimited Love, which arrives nearly 40 years into the band’s career and makes no concessions to any prevailing trends of popular music in 2022, the Chili Peppers sound like no one but themselves.
In fact, they sound a lot like themselves. After testing the waters with replacement guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who debuted on 2011’s I’m With You, and new collaborator Danger Mouse, who produced 2016’s The Getaway, the goal here is to act like no time has passed, settling back into their old magic and maybe finding some winners to slot between the hits in their live set. Grungy first single “Black Summer” and glittery funk throwback “She’s a Lover” should do the trick, but even mid-tempo cuts like “Bastards of Light” find satisfying payoffs from the moody, patient songcraft they attempted during their tentative past decade in the wilderness. As for the lyrics, there’s a song that seems to be about traffic in Los Angeles; another about how good the music was in the ’70s. There are some veiled references to aging and grief and climate change. There’s a chorus that promises (threatens?) that Anthony Kiedis’ “aquatic mouth dance is waiting for you”; there’s another where he argues how cool it would be if the great apes could roam free.