You have to hand it to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
On Monday, the band announced a new song would be delivered sometime today, May 5, and sure enough, that new song has arrived this afternoon. It was a bit nerve-wracking: a new Chili Peppers song on Cinco de Mayo? What could possibly go wrong?
Well, turns out that what’s actually more shocking than a release rollout without any sort of gimmick attached is that the new track, titled “Dark Necessities,” is actually… wait… damn… it’s actually pretty good.
No, it’s not about California, and frontman Anthony Kiedis isn’t rolling his “r’s in the name of funk.
The track, which you can hear before, is a dramatic, piano- and bass-amplified jam that might be the band’s best single work in several years. It’s a calmer Chili Peppers sound, with faint traces of their confident Mother’s Milk era, and and it works.
“Dark Necessities” is the first taste off the Chili Peppers’ 11th studio album, The Getaway, which drops June 17 via Warner Brothers. Pre-order it here and get the first single for free.
Also of note — the Chili Peppers will headline the 25th anniversary of Lollapalooza this summer. It goes down July 28 to 31 at Grant Park in Chicago.