The Chilis have definitively taken the socks off their cocks: now they wear them to keep their feet warm while they sip cocoa and concoct lovely melodies. Far from the gloriously brutal funk-metal workouts of old, By the Way is their most relaxed and mellow album yet.

A grainy string orchestra swells through cosmically minded love song Universally Speaking, ballad Midnight features a theremin, and Cabron is a pungently surprising flamenco singalong. That said, the Chilis haven't forgotten how to dance. Self-explanatory manifesto Throw Away Your Television boils with Flea's bass rumblings and an irresistible tom battery, On Mercury brilliantly rehabilitates the idea of ska, and Can't Stop is possibly the funkiest thing they have ever done.

Singer Anthony Kiedis does his rap-shouting thing while backing himself with a swooning falsetto countermelody; drummer Chad Smith cunningly saves his hi-hats for the most devastating moments; and John Frusciante's clean-toned guitar is thrilling: you can almost hear the wound metal of the strings scraping against the fretboard.

The lyrics throughout are the usual rhyming nonsense, and all the more pleasing for it.