The Boston Globe review of TROWFTD
01st March 2001, The Boston Globe (USA)
Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante’s first two solo records were trippy dips into experimental rock. This latest is a more singer/songwriter affair with linear arrrangements and a song cycle about his five-year struggle with addiction. While it may have been purifying to write and record these songs, it makes for pretty difficult listening. Frusciante is an inventive, explosive guitarist, but you’d never know it from this set, which is moody and muted. Problems abound. The lyrics are obtuse and vague and his singing aims for a doomed romanticism. He sounds like a wounded dog suffering from mad howl disease. The sound is muddy, as though recorded in a soggy basement. And the programmed rhythm tracks sound cheaply done. The thing that makes Frusciante a compelling artist is completely absent. To paraphrase James Carville: It’s the guitar, stupid.
— Ken Capobianco
