Stadium Arcadium

Stadium Arcadium boasts virtuoso musicianship, lustrous arrangements and unpredictable flourishes, but inside all this breathtaking sonic architecture it is strangely empty.

Attempting such an ambitious concept in an age of diminished attention spans should no doubt be applauded, but overstretching itself in a stab at immortality, "Stadium Arcadium" marks a step backwards from 2002's "By The Way".

Neither disjointed embarrassment of riches à la The Beatles nor conceptual magnum opus like The Wall, Stadium Arcadium is two hours of sometimes middling, sometimes masterful, mostly pleasurable mainstream rock.

Stadium Arcadium is perfectly capable and occasionally ingratiating, but whatever goodwill it musters up is trounced by its redundancy.

Even the "there's a great album hiding in here!" cliché doesn't really apply, since if you conducted ten trials of picking fourteen songs at random, you'd end up with ten albums of near equal mediocrity.

Whereas poor production values and drug-fueled exuberance once excused their George Clinton worship, 20 years on, in Rick Rubin's sterile environment, the band sounds like they're in jamband training camp, filling in all the empty spaces with blippityblap reminders of Flea's virtuosity and John Frusciante's desire to use every effects pedal ever invented.