John Frusciante has released five solo albums this year, with each one better than the last, until now. The last one blew me away with its adventure and improvisation and just couldn’t be bettered. INSIDE OF EMPTINESS is not better but it’s as good in a different way.

The rawness of sound and emotion are still present, but the rock style is more conventional, and the content more diverse in both mood and pace. It’s also one of the best rock records heard this year.

The album opens with one of the highlights of this particular collection. What I Saw has arguably the strongest melody heard so far, in addition to a wandering drum rhythm and a storming cascade of guitar riffs (some of the best heard in 2004). With the next song, The World’s Edge, the pace slows dramatically while the emotional stakes are lifted to stratospheric levels. In another melodically-powerful song Frusciante gives a achingly beautiful and expressive vocal performance over plucked guitar and crashing drum choruses. Superb!

After a brief rocky spell with Inside A Break, the emotion returns with the magical, slow A Firm Kick with its deathly slow drum rhythm and soaring backing vocals. Frusciante provides another killer vocal that travels the scale, in addition to some of the best guitar riffs on the album. Track six, Emptiness, boasts exploding, lyrical guitar riffs in a song that can only be classified as ‘heavy rock’, before the glacial and haunting I’m Around offers the most peaceful respite. Heavy rock returns with 666 and some screaming guitar riffs from Omar Rodriguez, pounding drum beats from Josh Klinghoffer and desperate, angry vocals from the man himself.

This is a wondrous album that gets to the heart of what great rock music is all about. It’s inundated with strong melodies and diverse pace, superb instrumental performances, deeply personal lyrics, mind-blowing vocal performances, and production that lets the full emotion and passion of the recording dominate. I can’t wait to hear the last in this series of six albums due out in December.

4.5/5