Red Hot Chili Peppers - Never Is A Long Time / Love Of Your Life (2012) (6/10)

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS’ third out of nine seven-inch singles from the “I’m With You Outtakes” presents two more laid-back radio Rock ballads that should please a lot to the fans of the more recent releases but that may leave fans of the band’s early Funk and Punk sounds rather unimpressed.

“Never is a Long Time” has some warm retro Rock ‘n’ Roll influences that make me think of possible influences from the fifties and sixties by artists and bands such as THE CRICKETS, SUNNY JAMES, THE BEACH BOYS or THE BEATLES. The track has a certain charm and also a somewhat catchy chorus but remains too ordinary and predictable to truly impress. The song also doesn’t have enough emotions to really grip or grow on you and is only of an average quality because of its lack of depth.

“Love of Your Life” makes you either think of a kitsch track or a truly powerful ballad but the final result happens to be none of the above. This song goes in the same direction as the other one and includes a few retro Rock influences from the sixties and seventies. The most outstanding thing about that mellow track is a well done guitar solo by Josh Klinghoffer that truly saves this song. The guitar sounds in fact a little bit noisy but still retro enough to fit to the song. Towards the end of the solo, the strange sounds make me think of a distorted trumpet which gives the song a slight Jazz feeling. After this, the bass guitar also gets a little bit jazzy towards the soft finish but these elements come a little bit too late to put this track on a higher level.

In the end, these two brand new tracks in here fit well together and make this single the most coherently sounding one to date from the series of nine vinyl releases. The two songs are though not spectacular at all. I would only recommend this release to true fans and collectors of the band or to those that happen to have a big crush on records such as “Californication” or “Stadium Arcadium”.

(Online October 30, 2012)