Just in case anyone in 2006 was wondering where the planet's pre-eminent funk-rock group were heading next, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released a behemoth double album with the muscular name Stadium Arcadium – surely a title impossible to read without hearing it in a meaty, WWF ring announcer's voice.
Half a decade on, and with new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer replacing John Frusciante, bassist Flea has cited "life and death" (that perennial favourite) as "a major theme" of their 10th album. Might the men famous for the cocks-in-socks photo-shoot have gone all reflective on us? Not entirely. Opener "Monarchy of Roses" begins with a big squall of guitar and drums before moving into a merry, chugging disco chorus that doesn't exactly scream life and death.
There's a welcome surprise, though, in "Brendan's Death Song", written for their friend Brendan Mullen, an LA punk stalwart who died in 2009. It begins with acoustic guitar and uncharacteristically tender vocals from Anthony Kiedis, before building into an enormous, blustering gale of sound topped by a yelled: "I said a-yeahhhhh, yeahhhh." Heartfelt and grandiose, it's the album's highlight.
But it would not be a RHCP album without their twin obsessions – California and sex. Sure enough, Kiedis drops a doozy on "Happiness Loves Company", a stadium anthem built on self-help mantras, with the line: "Young lovers keep it pumpin' in the streets of LA." Elsewhere, he raps such outrageous nonsense that you wonder why someone hasn't created an online Kiedis-lyric generator. "Did I Let You Know" rhymes "cheeky" with what sounds like "Mozambique-y", but special mention must also go to "Ethiopia", on which words are abandoned altogether for some Teletubbies vowel sounds ("ee-i-oh-i-ee-i-a").
He's no poet, then, but I don't think that will bother any RHCP fan. In fact it's the band's refusal to sound older, or wiser, that's integral to their charm. The video for their singalong single "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie" sees Kiedis and co (pushing 50 and as shirt-averse as ever) leaping about on a Venice Beach rooftop, performing for those young lovers in the LA streets below; twice the age of most of them but the strut of their sound is perpetually adolescent.
There's a moment on "Did I Let You Know" when Kiedis shouts: "Ha ha!" as a guitar solo comes to a triumphant end. That might be a comment on the sheer musicianship of his bandmates – Flea's bass lines are as irrepressible as ever – or it might just be the habitual exclamation of a man with 65m album sales to his name. Either way, it's hard not to feel a grudging sort of affection at the sound of a bunch of dudes rocking out, older and, blissfully, none the wiser.
