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