The twelfth album from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Unlimited Love, is notable for several reasons: Next year, the band will have been around for 40 years; it's their first since 2009 with on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante; and they've returned to producer Rick Rubin, who helmed their 1991 commercial breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The old gang sounds like they're having more fun than ever. "Aquatic Mouth Dance" is at once undeniably RHCP and also like nothing they've done before: With a breezy R&B chorus and a vibrant wash of brass, it's almost an Earth, Wind & Fire song; it's also Flea at his finest, delivering super-funky bass that shows why he's gone from being seen as a party doofus to earning real respect. A wild tribute to 1980s LA nightlife, the song name-drops John Doe, the Misfits, Billy Zoom, "the old Starwood" and the long-closed Cathay club where the band got its start, and even offers a self-referential wink to an old album: "Spilling beer is a good fountain/ Like the milk from a mother's tit." The band is also in a nostalgic mood on loose-limbed "Poster Child," a wah-inflected wordplay buffet: "Melle Mel and Richard Hell/ Were dancing at the Taco Bell/ When someone heard a rebel yell … Lizzy looking mighty thin/ The Thompsons had another twin … Steve Miller and Duran Duran/ A joker dancing in the sand." With its "ayo-ayo" chorus, "One Way Traffic" already feels like classic RHCP, as Anthony Kiedis laments his friends getting older and settling down: "Now they read them catalogs." (His escape? Driving down the PCH, music turned up, to a killer surf spot.) There are heavy moments—"These Are the Ways" is pure grunge; "Here Ever After" feels ominous; and "The Heavy Wing" lives up to its name with eye-watering guitar—and dreamy ones that showcase Frusciante's fluid touch (ballad "Not the One," the Steely Dan chill of "Let 'Em Cry," the slip-and-slide R&B of "She's a Lover"). There's even a song that does both, as "Whatchu Thinkin'" flies from pretty, slightly psyched-out melody to blissed-out jam. The band is also, after all these years, still able to evolve and surprise. "Bastards of Light" gets almost country before it crests in a grunge breakdown; "White Braids & Pillow Chair" is a slice of experimental weirdness, weaving in bits of gospel and rumbling Western scores. (The verdict is still out on Kiedis' Hiberno-meets-pirate affectation on the stomper "Black Summer.") This is much, much more than a legacy band turning out the same old stuff. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz