FILTER’s fifth studio album – The Trouble With Angels – is an absolute gem. Just when you think the hard rock world’s totally lost its nuts, Richard Patrick and company drop one of the year’s most sonically poetic albums. Patrick has clearly returned to his ‘industrial metal’ roots. The album is produced by Bob Marlette (BLACK SABBATH, SALIVA, ATREYU) and slams the listener first with the hot single, “The Inevitable Relapse”, offering a modernized Filter without losing that signature sound they became so famous for, along with plenty of Patrick’s dark sense of humor. In dealing with his own past vices, he sings: “Drink it, take it, snort it, smoke it… every little thing I love about it.” Looking back, industrial metal reached its commercial peak in the last half of the 1990’s and the band’s smashing 1995 debut Short Bus was definitely one of the reasons for that phenomenal success. In my opinion, “The Trouble With Angels” is the band’s greatest accomplishment to date.
Track two’s “Drug Boy” is this band’s ‘A game’, employing a monster riff that sounds like something KORN could have used on their new studio effort. “Absentee Father” is positively brilliant stuff, embarking on a dark ride via Patrick’s haunted voice. “No Love” storms into your head and then finds a perfect spot right into your heart. The listener will be taken to a place where you don’t always go with music today… a veritable musical utopia – because I feel so much of what’s played on the radio currently lacks a real ‘pulse’. Patrick not only returns to form, I feel he goes beyond that with this perfectly enchanting masterwork. I don’t hear near the passion from any other leading artist performing across the board in music, yet Filter remains that perfect underground band that plenty of people still have not heard about. There’s more than enough firepower on “The Trouble With Angels” to win over many new fans. If they can keep this new momentum going with more music that’s this good, Filter could get back to being quite the rock n roll entity.
ROCKET REVIEW:
[starreview tpl=16] FILTER “The Trouble With Angels” (CD)
(Rocket Science Records/2010)
1. The Inevitable Relapse
2. Drug Boy
3. Absentee Father
4. No Love
5. Fades Like A Photograph (Dead Angel)
6. Down with Me
7. Catch A Falling Knife
8. The Trouble With Angels
9. Clouds
10. No Re-Entry
http://www.officialfilter.com/
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