thevoid99's Full Review: Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane's Addiction
After the release of 1988's Nothing's Shocking, Jane's Addiction were riding high on a wave of critical acclaim as well as rising fan base from the underground. While they courted controversy over the album's cover as well as the video for the song Mountain Song. The band still managed to get a bit of attention from the mainstream as they were clearly on the rise. Despite the rise of success, tension between the band over royalty disputes and clashing personalities were boiling as they were set to record their third album. Vocalist Perry Farrell had newer, more ambitious ideas for the next album that would cultivate with their biggest success to date as well as the beginning of the end for the original band.
Written and performed by Jane's Addiction with production by Farrell and Dave Jerden, Ritual de lo Habitual is an album that features Jane's Addiction's unique sound as it's taken to newer heights. Along with songs ranging from vibrant jams, kooky tunes, and epic-like ballads with Eastern influences. It's a record that has the band expanding their sound to emphasize on Stephen Perkins' polyrhythmic drumming style along with Eric Avery's melodic, swirling bass lines, and Dave Navarro's blazing, eclectic guitar work. Lyrically, the album takes on themes of death, authority, drug addiction, and romance with its second half dedicated to a friend of Farrell including references to his mother's suicide when he was young. While the album lacks the chaotic atmosphere of Nothing's Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual is a masterpiece that has the band broadening their sound and reaching new heights.
The album begins with a woman speaking in Spanish talking about how the band that they're about to hear has more influence on their children than their own parents as she announces from Los Angeles, Jane's Addiction. Then comes the album's first song Stop! with Dave Navarro's charging, washy guitar riffs and Perry Farrell's high-pitch, screeching vocals along with Stephen Perkins' rumbling drum fills, and Eric Avery's thundering, loopy bass lines. With its fast-charging presentation and Farrell's lyrics of celebration, it's a full-on, crunching rocker with a punk-like intensity until it reaches a bridge where it slows down with Navarro's droning guitars, Avery's smooth bass lines, and Farrell's lyrics about rising against oppression. Once it returns to its fast, frenetic presentation, Navarro's blazing, wailing guitar solo takes charge in this punk-inspired classic.
Next is the upbeat yet wobbly No One's Leaving led by Avery's twangy, sturdy bass line and slaps with thumping beats and Navarro's shimmering guitar. With Farrell's intense vocals and lyrics about interracial relationships and its impact, the song features instrumental breaks of driving guitars and bass with Perkins' hard-hitting, unconventional snare fills that is later accompanied by Navarro's harmonica-like, blazing guitar solo that wails through. Ain't No Right begins with a haunting, bass-drum accompaniment with Avery's vocals singing about sex, drugs, and rock n' roll before going into a song that features a punk-like energy led by Avery's bumping bass line and Farrell's confrontational vocals. With its angry lyrics, Perkins' pummeling drums, and Navarro's assaultive guitar including a heroic solo, it's a song that is the band at their most intense with its crisp, wandering production.
The shimmering yet mid-tempo Obvious with its swirling sounds of siren-like guitars, piano strikes, and Avery's loopy bass line through its swooning production. With Navarro's serene yet wailing guitar playing to Avery's bass line and Perkins' frenetic drumming, it's Farrell's smooth, wailing vocals with lyrics about identity that makes the song intense yet atmospheric. Even as Navarro brings in shimmering notes to the guitar, it's a song that is simple yet esoteric in proving that there's more to the band than just rock. The famed single Been Caught Stealing is the band at their funniest with its loopy, warbling presentation of barking dogs, Avery's wobbly bass lines, Navarro's swanky guitar, and Perkins' clapping-like beats. Farrell's lyrics about thieving is truly funny as he sings with glee and humor as it's a fun song with lots of witty lyrics, a cool bass line, and Navarro's blazing solo as it's one of the band's most defining moments.
The album's second half begins with what is considered to be one of the greatest epic songs of the 1990s entitled Three Days. The ten-minute, forty-five second song begins with a soft spoken word from Eric Avery about death that is heard throughout the song's first half in its eerie, atmospheric production. Then comes Avery's wobbly, melodic-driven bass line to start the song off along with Dave Navarro's washy, arpeggio guitars as they accompany Perry Farrell's soothing, haunting vocals. Filled with lyrics about death, romance, and addiction. It's a song with a unique structure and presentation as it starts out as a ballad of sorts with Stephen Perkins playing a smooth, mid-tempo track with Navarro's arpeggio guitar flourishes. When the song goes into a powerful section with Navarro's power-chord blazing through, Farrell's vocals are at a wailing presentation. Then comes this section with Perkins' rumbling, vibrant drums and Avery's sturdy, bumping bass line as Farrell sings haunting lyrics with angelic-like references.
Then comes this moment in the song where it becomes this powerful instrumental with Perkins' drumming going all over the place along with Navarro's crying, wailing guitar solo that is just stunning to hear in its heroic playing as it goes on for more than a minute. Even as the track intensifies with Perkins' polyrhythmic, intense drum solo that goes into an array of percussive hits only to get thunderous with Perkins' pounding bass drum, Avery's thumping bass, and Navarro's scratchy guitar. Yet, it's Farrell who sings like a man singing to the angels that includes a brief, dreamy section only to go into full-on, heroic epic-rock mode that includes another guitar solo, furious bass lines, and pulsating drums as it's the band in a truly defining moment.
The dreamy, eight-minute ballad Then She Did... is a song that is partially about the suicide of Farrell's mother with the rest of the lyrics about Xiola Blue, the woman that the album is dedicated to as well as the person sung about in the album's second half. With its washy, elegant guitars, swooning bass lines, and tapping cymbals, Farrell's somber vocals filled with lyrics of death and longing. With Perkins playing a smooth yet vibrant drum track that is accompanied by sweeping, broad string arrangements and charging performance from Navarro and Avery in their respective instruments. It's a song that displays the band's eclectic yet art-rock driven sound. Of Course is an Easter-influenced song with a swimmingly violin performance by Charlie Bisharat as it becomes this percussive-driven track with washy, dream-like acoustic riffs from Navarro and Avery with Perkins and album engineer Ron S. Champagne playing the bass drum tracks. With Farrell's mystical lyrics and swooning vocals, it's a song that is the band at their richest and diverse proving that they can create an art rock song. With its superb, layered production, it is a track that is unforgettable and one of the album's finest moments.
The album closer is the dreamy ballad Classic Girl with its washy, melodic-swooning guitars from Dave Navarro along with Eric Avery's smooth, sturdy bass lines. With Farrell's soft yet screeching vocals with somber, melancholic lyrics, it's a song that features amazing imagery and a mood that is dream-like through its production. With Perkins playing a smooth accompaniment on the drums, the song maintains its dreamy imagery until a more upbeat break of warbling beats, arpeggio guitar flourishes, and rumbling bass line before going into its somber tone. Then the song returns to its pulsating presentation for its coda closing the album.
Released in August of 1990, the album became the band's biggest hit to date as it went gold that year while landing in the top 20 Billboard album charts. While the album's success helped spawn two successful singles with Stop! and Been Caught Stealing in which the latter featured a classic video directed by Farrell's then-girlfriend Casey Niccoli. The album courted controversy over its album cover that featured male and female nudity that was created by Farrell and Niccoli. The band responded by releasing the album in a different album cover featuring the first amendment. The band toured with bands like the Pixies, Primus, and the Smashing Pumpkins opening for them while at the same time, they recorded a cover of the Grateful Dead's Ripple for a tribute album of the band.
Yet, rising tension and constant touring finally reached its point as a planned MTV Unplugged appearance for the band was scrapped. In 1991, Farrell announced the creation of the Lollapalooza festival which would be the band's farewell tour. Joining the band on this inaugural festival were Siouxsie & the Banshees, Ice-T with his rap-metal band Body Count, Living Colour, the Butthole Surfers, the Rollins Band, Violent Femmes, Fishbone, and a then-unknown industrial rock band called Nine Inch Nails. The tour helped expose the mainstream to the burgeoning alternative rock movement as it became an unlikely and monstrous success. Unfortunately, it was the end of the band as a show in Hawaii after a tour of Australia in September proved to be the last time audiences saw the original band for 17 years.
Though doesn't have the atmospheric romp of Nothing's Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual is still a sprawling, exotic, and rocking masterpiece from Jane's Addiction. While it's the band's most well-known album due to its famed singles Stop! and Been Caught Stealing as well as their most complex. It's a record that truly captures the spirit of the 1990s Alternative rock movement just before Nirvana would arrive and take it to the mainstream. This record is truly one of the band's essential albums as well a must-have record for anyone who likes rock that is challenging and heroic. In the end, Ritual de lo Habitual is a masterpiece for the ages from Jane's Addiction.
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