Filter - The Amalgamut Review
Posted by Nick Dee on 09.11.2002
Filter lets their fans have their cake and eat it too, with their new album….
One of the many bands to spring from the loins of Nine Inch Nails, Filter debuted on the music scene with the Industrial Rock album “Short Bus” in 1995. The band had a made a small splash with the catchy and controversial single “Hey Man, Nice Shot” before they disappeared from the music radar almost as quickly as they had appeared. Filter didn’t go away for good, as the band began popping up occasionally to contribute to various movie soundtracks and scoring another minor hit with their collaboration with the Crystal Method entitled “(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do”. In 1999 the band released its second album called “TITLE OF THE RECORD”, an album that was a 100% departure of the harsh and dirty industrial rock sound of “Short Bus”. “TOTR” was a more polished album that featured a more radio friendly sound while featuring some of Richard Patrick’s strongest lyrics to date. The album contained Filter’s biggest hit to date, the Top 40 Radio crossover song “Take a Picture” along several minor hits with the singles “Welcome to the Fold” and “The Best Things”.
The success of “TOTR” and the mainstream success of “Take a Picture” generated some cries of sell-out from some Filter fans and obviously left listeners with a cliffhanger to ponder while the band went to work on their third studio album: would Patrick attempt to abandon his industrial rock roots in order to try and produce a totally mainstream rock album where every other song was a variation of some sorts of “Take a Picture” or would he return Filter back to it’s dark industrial rock sound of “Short Bus” and abandon the mainstream success of “TOTR”? The answer can be found on the long awaited third album “The Amalgamut”, which has Filter attempting to give listeners their cake and letting them eating it as well by putting together an album that is 50% “Short Bus” and 50% “TITLE OF THE RECORD”.
Rather than pick one particular sound to go with for “The Amalgamut”, Patrick decided to half and half the album and use both the dark and gritty industrial rock sound of “Short Bus” and the polished alternative rock sound of “TITLE OF THE RECORD”. The result is naturally a schizophrenic record where the breakdown can be seen as followed:
TOTR-styled: You Walk Away, Where Do We Go From Here, The Missing, The Only Way (is the Wrong Way), My Long Walk to Jail, God Damn Me,
Short Bus-styled: American Cliché, Columind, So I Quit, It Can Never Be the Same, World Today, The 4th
Luckily Patrick’s vocals make the schizophrenic nature of the album less noticeable. Patrick’s singing ability has come a long, long way from Short Bus and gives both styles of music a common thread that connects them throughout the course of the album.
Lyrically the album contains some of Patrick’s best work. “The Missing”, “Columind, and “My Long Walk to Jail” stand out as the CD’s strongest tracks. I’m kind of surprised and really disappointed though that Filter released the super-weak “Where Do We Go From Here” as their first single. “Columind”, which was almost unanimously singled out by critics and reviewers as the best track on the album, would have made a better first single, but given the song’s subject matter (Patrick openly condemning Columbine Massacre shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as nothing more than spoiled rich kids who killed their classmates for no good reason as well as accusing people of not really caring about finding out the cause of such acts of violence at school out of a sense of apathy) probably will keep it from ever getting released as a single. “The Only Way (is the Wrong Way)” is another single-worthy song that is already getting airplay, sort of as it has been featured in the car commercial for the Hummer H2.
The album does have its clunkers, most notably it’s final two tracks: “World Today” and “The 4th”, which has Patrick attempting stream of consciousness singing, only to fail miserably in what comes out. And “Where Do We Go From Here” is probably the worst song that Filter could have picked to be the album’s first single, when you compare it to “The Only Way (is the Wrong Way)”.
The 411: The Amalgamut is two steps forward for Filter lyrically and one step back musically as the band attempts to satisfy fans of both their previous two albums as opposed to taking their music into a new direction. But that aside, it’s a great album that I would gladly recommend.
