Filter: The Amalgamut : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Filter's biggest hits have never represented how the band ordinarily sounds. Just as "Hey Man Nice Shot" and "Take a Picture" were catchier, bouncier and far more distinctive than their albums' surrounding alt-metal bluster, "Where Do We Go From Here," the first single from the group's third album, The Amalgamut, is similarly, deceptively superior: Beyond the arrangement's obligatory grunge guitars and fail-safe soft-verse/loud-chorus dynamics, frontman Richard Patrick exudes classic power-pop longing. The result is more fab Badfinger than bad Nickelback.

Patrick and cohorts haven't left behind big, dumb obviousness. Thrashy, trashy tracks such as "Columind" still weigh the album down with anonymous groans and heard-'em-before riffs. But The Amalgamut's other standout, "The Only Way (Is the Wrong Way)," is so psychedelically pop-tastic that it begs a question: If Filter can repeatedly attain such pure beauty, why can't they elsewhere filter out their own sludge?

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 902 - August 8, 2002)