Filter

It’s been six years since Richard Patrick last put out an album as Filter. With the space of time–and another band (Army Of Anyone) in the interim–it seems dubious to view Filter in the context of a continuum. In reality, though, taken together, Anthems For The Damned and 2002’s The Amalgamut are very much a microcosm of America’s changing mood in the Bush years. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, The Amalgamut was in its own way an optimistic celebration of American strength through diversity, individuality, and freedom (As Patrick himself explained it, “Remember that you’re all free, and that we’re all Amalgamuts”).

This time around, his final lament is, “I’m starting to think that we’ll disappear,” before the album fades into a six minute ambient piece that–vaguely optimistic, but devoid of human presence–could almost be the calm after the apocalypse. Throughout, these Anthems are lyrically oblique enough that this could as easily be a 12-song commentary on Iraq or a series of introspective musings on isolation and despair. Either way, the context is clear.

Musically, it wouldn’t quite be accurate to call this the Josh Freese show; drums aren’t the focal point by any stretch. But Freese–who, on disc or on tour, has crossed musical paths with damn near everyone (and seemingly said “no” to no one) in the past 15 years–is absolutely essential here. It’s his steady rhythms that give Patrick the freedom to take Anthems all over the map without the album losing its cohesiveness. The Filter frontman seems at times to be channeling Layne Staley, Jonathan Davis – and certainly Bono, with deliberately dead-on shades of vintage U2 on opener “Soldiers of Misfortune.” It’s Patrick’s own voice that is most evident, though, on the sometimes strained, always soaring choruses that span straight-ahead rock, metal, delicate acoustic tracks, and a few nods to Filter’s more industrial origins.

—Mike Magnuson
05.13.08

The cover of Anthems for the Damned bears a picture of a helmet on a rifle and its first song is called "Soldiers of Misfortune," two clear indications that Filter are facing the problems of the modern world head-on on this, their fourth album and first in six years. Filter were on hiatus for the bulk of the 2000s, disbanding after 2002's The Amalgamut with leader Richard Patrick spending time with the post-Stone Temple Pilots project Army of Anyone before reuniting the band. Despite this long gap between The Amalgamut and Anthems for the Damned, there is continuity between these two records, as Filter don't abandon the gloomy, hard-edged sound that's been their stock in trade since Short Bus. This isn't to say there's no progression -- this is softer than much of its predecessor and there are distinct traces of U2's anthemic rock, so it feels a little bit more age-appropriate, the kind of music an unrepentant alt-rocker facing down his 40th birthday should make -- nor does it mean that the band is dwelling in the past. Rather, it's just that this kind of well-polished heavy rock -- cobbled together from equal parts grunge, industrial, and '80s rock -- is what the band does, to the extent that the only way to really identify Anthems for the Damned as a product of 2008 is through its succession of antiwar, socially conscious lyrics. Consequently, Anthems for the Damned is kind of a curious amalgam, with Patrick's urgent words not quite jibing with the well-executed mannered angst-rock, yet the disconnect isn't too dissonant, which is the problem: the whole affair feels just a shade too well-manicured -- the rhythms too tight, the guitars too well-scrubbed, the production too well-balanced -- and as a result, the album never gets underneath the skin with way Filter intended. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide