John Frusciante - The Empyrean
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Free Music Notes for The Empyrean
Free Music Review: caution
Hit: 4 Stars
This music should come with a warning label. It will take you down to your deepest pain, it will drag you up to a soaring epiphany. Love it or hate it, it will not be denied. It is difficult to grasp, to come to terms with. You only thought you put those demons to rest.Free Music Review: A Mixed Review
Hit: 3 Stars
I really, really wanted to like this album. I am confident that John Frusciante is one of our greatest living guitarists, clearly versed in funk guitar both technically and stylistically. His Smile From the Streets You Hold, though sometimes painfully raw, is one of the most beautiful lo-fi records I have ever heard. As one Amazon reviewer of that album put it, "good music is not always easy to listen to." Empyrean operates on the very opposite principle: it's easy on the ears, but with the exception of a couple tracks ("Unreachable" and "Central"), it doesn't have a whole lot of substance. It may be the closest John will ever get to ear candy, but as responsible music listeners it is our job to look for the real music in there.
The first track, "Before the Beginning," might sound interesting to some listeners, but to more experienced funk music appreciators (like Frusciante) it is a blatant rip-off of George Clinton's "Maggot Brain," a classic emotionally charged guitar solo that should not be so freely imitated - at least, not without crediting its sources or advertising itself as an homage to the great master of funk. "Before the Beginning," however, is not able to match Clinton's free-flowing guitar verse, Frusciante's guitar work too caught up in the rigidity of his framework. The song sounds a little guarded. I'm sure many novel music appreciators will find this piece hauntingly beautiful, but for the rest of us it's hard not to draw unfavorable "Maggot Brain" comparisons.
"Unreachable" better matches the sounds of the expert funkadelics who have influenced Frusciante. Although the former half of the song may be too pop-rock for some of his more eclectic fans, he tops it off with a warbled, face-melting guitar riff (my only complaint is that it's too short!). This track alone may be worth the price of the album for some people.
Unfortunately, most of the other tracks on the album rely too heavily on special effects and don't really go anywhere. "God" has a neat bass line, but you'll soon realize it's a one trick pony; the fantastic bass line in "Dark/Light," beautifully rendered by Flea, is covered up by one of the tackier drum machine beats I've heard (a true WTF decision on Frusciante's part) and repeated to the point of exhaustion.
"Central" is my favorite track on the album. It's repetitive, but unlike "Dark/Light," its repetition is necessary to the development of the song and even meditative. The guitar work is sophisticated and extensive without being too showy. One of Frusciante's finer works for sure.
As brilliant as "Central" and "Unreachable" may be, they are surrounded by some pretty mediocre material, and for that reason I knock off two stars. I'm also slightly offended by the George Clinton rip-off. I would have thought a musician as talented as John Frusciante would be too classy for this sort of second-rate Funkadelic stuff.
Free Music Review: I wanted to like it
Hit: 2 Stars
Really, I did. I read lots of reviews of Frusciante's other albums; I heard (I think) that he plays a lot with The Mars Volta, one of my favorites. I assumed that when he sloughed off the Chili Peppers, Frusciante would go wild. Um...no. This sounded like re-warmed Chili Peppers music to me--and they lost me about 3 albums ago. I was not excited; not entranced; not even interested.
Total bummer.