If the Red Hot Chili Peppers have come to realize anything over a career of nearly 20 years, then it's that enough shallowness eventually starts to make you pretty deep. Over that time there have been drugs, there have been girls, and there have almost certainly been parties – now we find the group in the unenviable position of surveying the aftermath, and trying to clear up the mess. 

Or we would, were this 1999, and this a review of the band's 'Californication' album – confessional, occasionally heartbroken, and containing a song about going surfing with your friends. The thing is, so monstrously successful was this often downbeat record, it feels that with 'By The Way' the group have got the confidence to do exactly what they want again. Their hearts are on their sleeves, for sure, but their hearts seem to be in their work as well. 

And 'By The Way' is, by and large, very good. By god is it ever long (it's 16 tracks), but on the whole it showcases enough of what makes the Chili Peppers a very good rock group – chief among these are John Frusciante's excellent, inventive guitar playing, and the fact that it is with tremendous conviction that Anthony Kiedis belts out even the most ridiculous words. 

Stylistically all over the shop (there's a Spanish-sounding thing called 'Cabron', 'Tear' sounds like Paul McCartney, while 'On Mercury' is dangerously close to ska-punk), there is a confused but occasionally inspirational band at work here. Certainly, there are bellowing rock ballads that you have heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers do a thousand times before, albeit with different names, but there are equally a clutch of songs that brilliantly capture their regretful, reformed, but still ultimately playful essence. 
'By The Way' (the single), sets the tone. In it, we find Anthony Kiedis waiting, rather unbelievably, "in line to see the show" (surely "in line for an early dinner reservation at Spago"), but compensates for this immediately with a completely unpredictable torrent of noise. 'Can't Stop' sees them revisiting their funk rock blueprint, then, best of the lot, there's 'This Is The Place'. Basically 'Under The Bridge Pt 2', a heroin confessional with a fantastic chorus, and the moment where you could most realistically believe that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are actually a rock band of the quality of Queens Of The Stone Age. The Red Hot Chili Peppers today define themselves by what they were once, and how they're not like that anymore. Not wasted. Not stupid. And remarkably, not uncool, either.