Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Red Hot Chili Peppers heve returned with By the Way, the follow-up to the band’s 1999 multi-platinum set, Californication. This album has a mellow late-’60s California sound, like the classic Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds era, or the layered harmonies of the Mamas & the Papas. Lead singer Anthony Kiedis’ vocals sound stronger and better than they ever have. The album opens with the wild tribal rap-rock of “By the Way.” Another of the cooler songs here is “This Is the Place,” about sex and drugs and rhyming T and A With DNA. Although if you came expecting a rock record, be forewarned: most of these songs are trippy ballads. “Venice Queen” offers a haunting vision that asks, “Where you come from / Where you going.” And “Warm Tape” is spacey and trippy, like Star Trek on acid. So if the world is stressing you out, this album will make you want to light it up and lay it down.