The Will to Death
| The Will to Death | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Error creating thumbnail: File missing | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 22, 2004 | |||
| Recorded | December 2003 and January 2004 | |||
| Length | 42:23 | |||
| Label | Record Collection | |||
| Producer | John Frusciante | |||
| John Frusciante chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 68/100[1] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [2] |
| Alternative Press | [3] |
| NME | 6/10[4] |
| Mojo | [5] |
| Pitchfork | 7.4/10[6] |
| Q | [7] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | [8] |
The Will to Death is the fifth studio album by American musician John Frusciante, released on June 22, 2004 on Record Collection. The album reached #36 on the Top Independent Albums chart.[9]
The vinyl edition of the record saw a repressing from Record Collection on December 11, 2012. These reissued records are 180 gram and come with a download of choice between MP3 and WAV formats of the album.
Frequent collaborator Josh Klinghoffer appears, performing drums, bass, guitar, and keyboard.
The album cover is a photo taken on Cimitero Monumentale di Milano. The man is Luigi Ontani.
Background and recording
[edit | edit source]In 2004 Frusciante announced that he would produce six albums during a six-month break from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with The Will to Death being the first of these. Following the long and costly recording of his previous album, Shadows Collide with People, Frusciante decided to experiment with recording music quickly and in a minimalist fashion, performing a maximum of two takes per track.[10]
Frusciante has stated that the album is intended to be "the opposite of Shadows Collide with People":
On The Will to Death, I thought it would be a good idea to make a record with very little backing vocals, because we’d done it so much on Shadows. I always have to have a new idea for each album. For The Will to Death, the idea was to have very little backing vocals. There’s a lot of other huge differences. In every way, I wanted the opposite of Shadows.
On January 16, 2013, John provided a definition and theory of "The Will to Death" on his website. [11]
Track listing
[edit | edit source]All tracks are written by John Frusciante, unless otherwise noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "A Doubt" | 4:19 | |
| 2. | "An Exercise" | 3:47 | |
| 3. | "Time Runs Out" | 4:00 | |
| 4. | "Loss" | 5:20 | |
| 5. | "Unchanging" | 3:54 | |
| 6. | "The Mirror" | 3:02 | |
| 7. | "A Loop" | 4:32 | |
| 8. | "Wishing" | 2:48 | |
| 9. | "Far Away" | 2:17 | |
| 10. | "The Days Have Turned" | 2:23 | |
| 11. | "Helical" | John Frusciante, Josh Klinghoffer | 2:13 |
| 12. | "The Will to Death" | 3:48 | |
| Total length: | 42:23 | ||
Personnel
[edit | edit source]The following people contributed to The Will to Death:[12]
Musicians
[edit | edit source]- John Frusciante – vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer, bass guitar on "Far Away", "Unchanging" and "The Will to Death"
- Josh Klinghoffer – drums, bass, keyboards, guitar on "Helical" and "The Will to Death"
Recording personnel
[edit | edit source]- John Frusciante – producer
- Ryan Hewitt – engineer, mixing
- Rafael Serrano – recording assistant
- Jeff Moses – recording assistant
- Bernie Grundman – mastering
- Dave Lee – equipment
Artwork
[edit | edit source]- Lola Montes Schnabel – cover photograph
- Mike Piscitelli – design
- John Frusciante – design
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Allmusic review
- ^ It's all very simple, organic and, best of all, easy on the ears. [Oct 2004, p.140]
- ^ Zooming sheets of spacious wind-tunnel prog and raw, solo-spattered soul. Commercially, it's suicide. [26 Jun 2004, p.55]
- ^ Stirring but sombre stuff. [Aug 2004, p.86]
- ^ Pitchfork Media review
- ^ Contains some potentially highly commercial music, were it not for the underwhelming production. [Sep 2004, p.118]
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ The Will to Death liner notes
External links
[edit | edit source]- www.johnfrusciante.com - John Frusciante's official site
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