John Frusciante
Shadows Collide With People
Warner Brothers
Grade: A-
WOW. Up-front, I'm a fan.
I first bought Niadra LaDes & Usually Just a T-shirt, John's first album, in college on a whim. I had heard it was a must own album of epic proportions...It throughly blew my mind. It sounds like a heroin addict locked in a house recording this thoughts into freaky acoustic song form...and well...it pretty much was just that. Flash forward a few years and John re-joins the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. They release an album of finely crafted tunes, devoid of most all of the aggro bad boy rapisms that most everyone had grown out of (you hear me Fred Durst!). It wasn't too hard to figure out that with John back in RHCP his song writing and vocal harmonies brought life back into his former band. After Smile From the Streets You Hold, John released To Record Water For Only Ten Days. One can safely assume that now having kicked the "horse" John was free to write more "song" oriented...songs. To Record Water... was an impressive piece of Depeche Mode tinged acoustic goodness. Next, another RHCP album that yet again made the Peppers an even MORE melodic band with John all over the album....
Which brings us to Shadows Collide with People as damn near the best album I've heard in years. 18 tracks of the best rock in ages. Frusciante has really come into his own. The songs have layers and layers of beautiful vocals and perfectly found keyboards. This album is just amazingly good. Frusciante finds new ways to sing notes in an order that you never thought of until that moment. The album is peppered (ha!) with appearances from fellow band mates and friends, but make no mistake this album is ALL John. Not only does John play some of the meanest, most unique sounding guitar riffs, he has crafted the most listenable yet original album in recent memory. You can't call yourself a music fan and not own this album. Nuff said - go get it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment