u/Ok_Masterpiece_1543

I love RHCP’s early era, with albums like Freaky Styley and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, and I equally love everything they did with Frusciante starting with BSSM, but Mother’s Milk just doesn’t click with me. I’ve listened to the album several times to see if it would grow on me, and while there are definitely some great songs like “Pretty Little Ditty,” “Good Time Boys,” and “Higher Ground,” it still feels more like a blueprint for the sound the band would develop on their next few albums than something that stands on its own as a particularly interesting record. I much prefer albums like One Hot Minute with Navarro and The Getaway with Klinghoffer as experiences, for example. Does anyone else feel the same way?

Listening to all 7 albums back to back, First Impressions was the only one that felt tiring to me. The album feels much longer than it needs to be, and I think cutting “Evening Sun” and “Red Light,” which are pretty forgettable songs, and ending with the excellent “Ize of the World” would have made First Impressions a much better album than it is.

Well, we know that the sessions with Rick Rubin took place in early 2022, so why did it take more than four years for the album to finally see the light of day? Will a potential new album take such a long time as well?