RIYL: Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice Cooper’s Brutal Planet and Dragontown
Filter is Richard Patrick. It’s his toy and he is going to steer it, hire the rest of the band and collaborate with who he thinks will make the best record. Mind you, it is going to sound like a Filter record. There will be those trademark Patrick screams contrasted against his solid singing voice; there will be crunchy industrial guitar riffs, chugging bass lines, at least one ballad and Patrick will be wrestling lyrically with subjects like addiction and the ills of organized religion. For The Trouble with Angels, Patrick works with Bob Marlette (Iommi, Alice Cooper, Atreyu among others) to re-sharpen the fangs of Filter. Marlette produces and engineers the record while co-writing nine of the ten songs.
Consistently, this is a heavier effort throughout the 41 minutes then the last several records and is much more akin to the debut Filter release, Short Bus then anything released since. Interestingly enough, Patrick brings back original Filter co-conspirator Brian Liesagang (who left the band in 1997) to add “Sound Design and Programming” to the project. The first three tracks (“The Inevitable Relapse,” “Drug Boy,” and “Absentee Father”) roll over you like a locomotive. Patrick’s intentions are loud and clear. The fourth track, “No Love,” slows the train down but features a thumping chorus and Patrick singing at the edge of his range.
There are two songs where things slow down and the record produces “Take a Picture”-like moments with the ballads “No Re-entry” and the gorgeous album closer “Fades Like a Photograph (Dead Angel).” The latter features some of Patrick’s most poetic and moving lyrics to date. Other than those two songs, Marlette is inspiring Patrick to be heavy. Marlette got great work out of Alice Cooper on Dragontown and Brutal Planet, moving Alice into industrial metal territory for two records. Here he gets a good record out of Patrick’, who has been busy the last couple of years re-energizing the brand name. Filter has released two albums, a greatest hits package and a remix album of 2008’s Anthems for the Damned in the last four years. Sobriety has treated Richard Patrick well and his fans have reaped the rewards of his re-energized work ethic. (Rocket Science Ventures, 2010)
