THE RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS

Mother’s Milk

With new guitarist John Frusciante replacing the late Hillel Slovak, The Peppers unleash their fourth album. Regrettably their lumpy stew of speed metal, funk and street punk posturing doesn’t improve with age. Labouring under the misapprehension that you can make up what you lack in wit or form by cranking up the volume and switching styles as often as possible, they stumble around like blindfolded men in a darkened second-hand record store, picking up a funky riff here, a power chord there, chucking in a few Zappaesque lyrics and trying to fit them together into some kind of coherent whole. The misshapen end product sounds like The Mothers being savagely mugged by a gang that includes James Brown, Stevie Wonder and The Ramones. Just another band from L.A.? Sure seems like it.**

Graeme Kay