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Red Hot Chili Peppers Singles Barrage Takes Mellow Turn on New Seven-Inch

red hot chili peppers sunset sleeps hometown gypsy

Back when Red Hot Chili Peppers vowed “a storm of seven-inches coming out over the next six months,” the Los Angeles funk-rockers had no idea just how tired most of us would be by now of inclement weather. Luckily, the latest single in the band’s ongoing series (via Consequence of Sound) is a gentler breath of fresh air.

A-side “Hometown Gypsy” is a country-oompahing, Kerouac-alluding story song, with shades of both “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and “Riders on the Storm” (that word again, sorry!). B-side “The Sunset Sleeps” features languidly sliding vocals from Anthony Kiedis that, when he drops to his lower register, oddly call to mind the Silver Jews’ David Berman — at least until the snappy “do you really want, do you want” section. “I’m so tired that I slept along the way,” Kiedis repeats, and this week we all might know that feeling. The guitar solo veers from happy-hippie Ram-era Paul McCartney pastures into Radiohead-like outer space: all in all, a nice dream.

RHCP’s latest single, out now digitally or on vinyl, follows “Never Is a Long Time” b/w “Love of Your Life,” “Magpies on Fire” b/w “Victorian Machinery,” and “Strange Man” b/w “Long Profession.” The titles for the next four releases haven’t been determined yet, but one single is set for December 4, another for December 18, and two more for early 2013. By which time our full appetite for gale-force freaky styley will, knowing our attention spans, probably have returned.

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