Long before metal got funky, and sickly, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playin’ their freaky styley sound of slap bass jams, cartoon capers and spasmodic soul, and for me ‘Mothers Milk’ is their finest record, several years before they became the favourite band of many an uncle and coated the airwaves like an all too sugary icing.‘Mothers…’ weaves, bobs, ducks, cavorts, grooves and sways, huge doses of metallic Parliament, Funkadelic and streetwise soul, bubbled up by Flea’s jumbled bass and Anthony Keidis, zany frontman into pulling faces and slipping between choppy raps and smooth tones.
At the time there appeared to be a bit of a rivalry between RHCP and innovators Faith No More, but FNM rose above the sickly sweet stench of funked up rock and delivered their poison to blacken the pristine quilt of alterno-rock.
The Peppers would go on to become one of the world’s biggest rock acts, but this is the record where it started despite some fine moments on their earlier releases. ‘Taste The Pain’ is the pivotal cut, a strutting, quirky tune, but the variety on offer here is at least authentic funk, not some bandwagon-surfing, suped up imitation. ‘Knock Me Down’ is a driving Hendrix soul anthem, ‘Sexy Mexican Maid’ a sultry number, but randomly pick out any smouldering groove on here and you’ll at once bathe in the funk and also want to make passionate luurrvv!
7.5/10
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