Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication (Vinyl 2xLP)

Following a string of unsatisfactory replacements (including former Jane’s Addiction alum Dave Navarro), Californication - the band’s seventh album – saw them reunited with both errant guitarist John Frusciante (hauled out of a long and debilitating heroin addiction) and producer Rick Rubin, whose mixture of commercial nous and sonic smarts helped make 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik their breakthrough set.

It’s a welcome reunion: Frusciante’s playing, in particular – tight, yet lyrical – fits these songs like a second skin, lending them a sensual sort of ease that is perfectly in keeping with the reckless hedonism of their lyrics. The songs themselves are much the same mixture of adrenalised swagger and high-tensile funk as ever.

The diverse album features an in-tune combination of harder rocking pieces and softer tunes. All in all you say that Californication is a comeback album of a special kind and truly in the vein of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

1. Around The World
2. Parallel Universe
3. Scar Tissue
4. Otherside
5. Get On Top
6. Californication
7. Easily
8. Porcelain
9. Emit Remmus
10. I Like Dirt
11. This Velvet Glove
12. Savior
13. Purple Stain
14. Right On Time
15. Road Trippin'