Red Hot Chili Peppers - Black Summer album

RHCP hold a huge nostalgic value for me, as one of the first bands I got really into. I'm happy to have John Frusciante back in the band and get a chance to see them live this year.

This is a rather decent, but not great return. The vocals are fun in typical oddball Anthony Kiedis fashion. The guitar playing is fun. It's just not near the best tune they've written.

Edit: this just keeps growing on me on relistens, the verses are quirky and juxtaposed by this anthemic hook, both of which ... read more

Red Hot Chili Peppers are back with their first new song since 2016. “Black Summer” also marks the band’s first song since guitarist John Frusciante rejoined the lineup in 2019. The track leads the band’s new album, Unlimited Love, which is produced by Rick Rubin and out April 1 via Warner. Watch the video for “Black Summer” below.

The new single arrives ahead of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ upcoming stadium tour. The group has shows lined up with support from A$AP Rocky, Thundercat, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Haim, Beck, the Strokes, King Princess, and St. Vincent. The trek is currently slated to begin in June and continue through September.

“Our only goal is to get lost in the music,” the members of Red Hot Chili Peppers said of their forthcoming album in a press release. “We (John, Anthony, Chad, and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.” They continued:

We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it. ROCK OUT MOTHERFUCKERS!

Frusciante added: “When we got together to start writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, the Kinks, the New York Dolls, Richard Barrett, and others. Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”

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Red Hot Chili Peppers’ previous album, The Getaway, was released in 2016. The record, produced by Danger Mouse, marked their last with Josh Klinghoffer, who began playing with Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2007. Shortly after his departure, Klinghoffer said it was a “complete shock but not a surprise” that he was out of the group. He added, however, that he felt a “great wave of love for [his former bandmates], and love for everything [he] was able to do with them.”

Frusciante’s return to Red Hot Chili Peppers was announced in December 2019. A couple of months later, he joined Anthony Kiedis and Flea on stage for a brief set at a memorial concert.

John Frusciante joined Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1988 after the death of the band’s founding guitarist Hillel Slovak. He played with the group for 1989’s Mother’s Milk and 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik before departing for the first time in 1992. Prior to his return to the band in 1998, Frusciante released the solo albums Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and Smile From the Streets You Hold (1997). Once back in the fold, Frusciante performed on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication (1999), By the Way (2002), and Stadium Arcadium (2006) before, once again, departing in 2009.

Read Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of John Frusciante’s 2001 LP To Record Only Water for Ten Days.

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“Our only goal is to get lost in the music. We spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could,” the band said in a statement about the LP. “Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.”

The band give a taste of their new music with first LP single, “Black Summer.” The Deborah Chow-directed video for the song captures the band’s Zen outlook, with the bandmates performing mostly separately in front of serene and surreal locations — a forest, an ice-tipped ocean, outer space and an upside-down desert scene. The clip culminates with the Chili Peppers meeting up on a stage flanked by multiple setting suns.

“It’s been a long time since I made a new friend/Waiting on another black summer to end,” Anthony Kiedis sings on the chorus.

“We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe,” the group added. “This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it. Rock out motherfuckers!”

Frusciante expounded on the group’s process while culling the album. “When we got together to start writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, The Kinks, The New York Dolls, Richard Barrett and others,” he said in a statement. “Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”

The band will hit the road this summer in support of Unlimited Love, with its North American leg kicking off in Denver, Colo. on July 23 at Empower Field at Mile High. It wraps at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas on Sept. 18.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Chad Smith discussed their upcoming trek — the band’s first U.S. stadium tour — calling it “kind of scary,” but also exciting. “We’ve written some of our best songs with these four guys, and we do have something special,” he said. “It will be really exciting, and I see us not taking that for granted at all. As you get a little bit older, you appreciate it more. It’ll be a real joyful thing.”

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