Army Of Anyone : Army Of Anyone : Review : Rolling Stone

Three members of this quartet are star soldiers of the Nineties alt-rock wars, back from extended furlough. In Stone Temple Pilots, the DeLeo brothers -- guitarist Dean and bassist Robert -- were responsible for a lot of the Seventies classicism and pop-song sense in that band's bang. Singer Richard Patrick did time in Nine Inch Nails before starting Filter. But what looks on paper like a gene-splice supergroup, Audioslave part deux, sounds much better than that on this debut, produced by Alice Cooper/Pink Floyd vet Bob Ezrin with the right mix of sandpaper and sheen. The DeLeos were an underrated team in their old band's heyday, unusually melodic players and writers in the era of the superriff, and it's hard not to hear their STP touch in the guitar-orchestra punch and turnaround hooks in "It Doesn't Seem to Matter" and "Generation." Patrick is a less idiosyncratic singer than STP's Scott Weiland, cleaner in tone, more on the note. That is not a bad thing. In the droning harmonies of "Non Stop," Patrick sounds like a peculiar but nifty mix of Layne Staley and the Humble Pie-era Peter Frampton. Ironically, Army of Anyone's big problem may be airplay. They're certainly ready for it. But how many rock radio stations are left to give it to them?