Inside of Emptiness
is
John Frusciante
's fifth release of 2004, this time principally inspired by the raw production values of
Lust for Life
and
White Light/White Heat
. Considerably more guitar-oriented than
Will to Death
and more straightforward than
Ataxia
's
Automatic Writing
,
rocks hard up until the last track (a gentle rocker), without the polish of
Shadows Collide With People
. That difference is best exemplified by the leadoff track,
"What I Saw,"
where every level is sent into the red; even the drums are distorted. Many of the songs are sung in falsetto, but when the guitar solos come in, they're all muscle and really benefit from the immediacy of the production. As with the other albums in this series,
Frusciante
is wearing his influences on his sleeve but following his own vision, and it's quite interesting to track an artist's virtually unfiltered output over the course of a year or so.
won't win any awards for originality, but
deserves credit for maintaining a high level of quality with such a prodigious output. ~ Sean Westergaard