Red Hot Chili Peppers- Stadium Arcadium (Warner Bros. Records)

After the severely mellow and disappointing 2002 album "By The Way", the Red Hot Chili Peppers have thrown out all the stops on their double disc, 28 song album "Stadium Arcadium". And by "all the stops", this reviewer means the good, bad and ugly stops along the way. The songs on "Arcadium" all bounce back and forth between the funky numbers that gave the Chili Peppers their niche, and the more "Mature" music the band has been playing recently.

The album, separated into the "Jupiter" and "Mars" disc displays the same formula: groovy/funk number, followed by introspective mood music, and so on...

The first single "Dani California" is a strong single that starts the discs out well. We are curious to understand lead singer Anthony Kiedis' rationale for the line "California, rest in peace..." during the song, but it would be interesting to see what the background on that is.

Most of the groove rockers, such as "Hump de Bump", and "21st Century" show that the band was phoning it in on "By The Way". The album evens shows off the same raw talent of their "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" glory days, with tracks such as "Torture Me", and the trippy track "Especially in Michigan". Always wild bassist Flea provides his best work on "She's Only 18", while guitarist John Frucsiante shows off his stellar licks on "Readymade" and "Charlie", and still amazing the fans of his comeback from his near death heroin addicition.

There are obvious upcoming singles on "Arcadium", such as the radio friendly "Wet Sand", and "If". But most of the tracks on the double album would be sufficient for radio, but that doesnt take anything away from most of the music.

Most of the mellow music on the album sounds like outtakes from "By The Way", and provides nothing new to the listener.

The Chili Peppers have always been better as the funky, loose rockers of their early days, versus the lite-rock fare we recieved in some of the more recent records (Yes, even the excellent "Californication" album had some of those moments). On "Arcadium", the Chili Peppers get back to basics for the most part, and prove to us that they have become one of the most reliable bands in modern rock. Only if they could have trimmed some of the filler from the record, it would be legendary, instead of just above average.

GRADE: B+