John Frusciante

There's a perfectly good reason Anthony Kiedis is the vocalist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Frusciante is the guitarist: Kiedis can sing, Frusciante can play the guitar, not the other way around!\nThus the guitar work on his solo album, To Record Only Water For Ten Days, is impeccable, but the singing just doesn't work. Frusciante constantly goes out of his range and just does not hit the right notes. Even when he's on scale, his voice doesn't go well with the music: It is too overbearing, and it is bad. The most pleasing parts of most of the songs are the beginnings, before Frusciante starts singing.\nThat said, Frusciante manages to put forward a decent effort of material musically. Straightforward, mellow rock sums up this album in a nutshell. His guitar work, while somewhat repetitive, creates a sonically exciting yet low-key sound.\nBut it's not the same feel as a hard-hitting RHCP album like BloodSugarSexMagik or Californication. Without Flea's wild bass or Kiedis' intimate lyrics, this album suffers from lack of substance. Frusciante obviously stayed far away from the funk-rock sound of RHCP, but even that aside, it's still possible to put some power into what he was trying to do.\nThe biggest problem, apart from the vocals, comes with the background effects. Often it is either a cheap synthesizer or low-budget drum machine. They sound like they were added at the last second to give the songs a stronger feel. They failed. \nAbout the only standout track on the album is "Murders." Completely instrumental, the song starts out as a techno track, led by a drum machine that sounds like it's about to die, until Frusciante's guitar comes in and takes over. Not great, but good for this album. Of course, then Frusciante's lyrics kick in on the next track, and I wanted to drive a stake into the heart of my CD player. \nIf anything, Water proves why the RHCP brought Frusciante back as its guitarist after Dave Navarro's departure, but also why he's not likely to take Kiedis' place. As the title implies, it's quite plausible that Frusciante actually recorded this album in only 10 days. But maybe if he had stuck with recording only water, it would have been a tad better.