The good, the bad, the reviews
The good: The simple poem mentioned two weeks ago and posted on John’s blog on 05th January and then deleted from the entry it was a part of after two days; has returned in a post of its own. And there are two new “lines” in it.
The bad: Why would there be anything bad? Everything is better than ever.
The reviews: As promised a couple of days ago, here is one more review digest.
This is from the nice people over there at Indie Paws. Make sure you read the whole thing here as I’m posting only an excerpt.
You could call The Empyrean a prog rock album in its heart but that association brings a heavy load with it and isn’t even particularly true overall: whilst there’s an emphasis to mood-crafting that isn’t afraid to take its time, there are still brief, more instant parts of the album like the keyboard-heavy “God†and “Heaven†(very much a musical flashback to Frusciante’s past musical works). It ends up so however that the longest songs give the most divine moments of the album: Unreachable is already a Frusciante classic (the instrumental climax gets better with each listen), “Central†builds into a hair-risingly gorgeous rock-out finale where strings swoop in a cinematically epic fashion as Frusciante throws out words like his life depends on it, and “Dark/Light‒s change from the murky Dark-section to the synthetic, upbeat and fluffy discoteque heaven Light-part is one of the best moments in the man’s discography (not to mention the extended finale of Light in general). Oooh, the call-and-answer vocals…
This is from NME. Many thanks to Tom.
At one point, John Frusciante was taking even more drugs than Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmate Anthony Kiedis. But while the himbo vocalist is spending his post-rehab years banging on about his former intake, the willowy Frusciante keeps his head down and churns out solo albums every five minutes as if to neutralise the increasingly artless jock-rock role he has to play during his day job. This, like the rest, is a high-minded collection of just-so etheral rock songs. The blissed-out best ones, such as ‘Heaven’ and ‘Song To The Siren’ stir the spirit a bit like Antony Hegart fronting MGMT might do. Play the whole thing next to ‘Stadium Arcadium’ and you might just think it’s really good.
RATING: 6/10
DOWNLOAD: ‘Heaven’
—Dan Martin
This is from Volkskrant. Many thanks to nowordsysword for the translation.
In 2004 Red Hot Chili Peppers’ gitarist John Frusciante made seven studiorecords in less than a year.
If you count the two records by his hobbyband Ataxia , ‘The Empyrean’ is already his eleventh album since his return to the Peppers in 1998 who, but the way, have gone on an indefinite hiatus in late 2007.
Whereas the Peppers became ever more predictable since 2000, Frusciante played around in all the colours of the rainbows: indie rock, singer/songwriter, endless guitarsolos, little flirts with electronics and avant-garde. Messiness guaranteed, just as well as moments of great beauty.
The Empyrean‘s supposed to be a concept album, losely based on Frusciante’s experiences. I’m sure it is; the music is far more interesting. During the nine-minute instrumental opening song one wonders where it’s all going, but the beautiful, enthralling moments are as numerous as in previous exploits: bits of hard rock, seventies’ psychedelics, a gospel choir and a number of sensitive melodies, often sung with that typefying falsetto.
