[.ca] The Amalgamut

Chronique amazon.fr:
Comme beaucoup dans le milieu du metal, Richard Patrick, chanteur, guitariste et âme de Filter, peut être considéré comme musicalement schizophrène. Cette tendance, déjà décelée sur Title Of Record se confirme sur cet Amalgamut. Rien d'alarmant, au contraire : les symptômes sont pour l'auditeur extrêmement plaisants. Ainsi Filter, un instant solidement retranché derrière un mur de riffs lourds et tranchants, un chant guttural, s'évade l'instant ou la plage suivante vers des horizons légers voire aériens. Il en résulte une progression colorée à travers un album chargé en ambiances et changements de tempos. "Where Do We Go From Here", premier single, en est le parfait concentré : en reprenant la recette qui avait fonctionné pour "Take A Picture" sur Title Of Record, Filter marie guitares acoustiques et saturées pour un single imparable, marqué de son sceau déjà. Au stade du troisième album, le groupe a par ailleurs pris de la bouteille : ce qui n'était à l'origine qu'un projet parallèle d'un ancien de Nine Inch Nails semble s'affiner, le son se travailler, tout en s'éloignant des racines à tendance plus indus de Short Bus. Quelle que soit la forme, Richard Patrick semble ne devoir finalement conserver sur le fond qu'un seul principe : la mélodie à tout prix. En douceur "The Missing", à consonance pop "The Only Way (Is The Wrong Way)", ou metal (voir notamment "Columind" en référence à la tuerie de Colombine, ou "You Walk Away"). Personne ne s'en plaindra et chacun au contraire pourra trouver dans cet Amalgamut matière à satisfaction, selon son humeur ou ses aspirations. Ce qui est bien, avec les schizophrènes, c'est qu'on ne s'ennuie jamais... --Julien Capraro

From Amazon.co.uk:
The Amalgamut, the third album from Filter, finds them deep in the process of refining their bleak industrial rock design. Frontman Richard Patrick was part of the touring incarnation of Nine Inch Nails back in the early 1990s, but gave it all up to perform his own brand of mildly controversial schlock-rock. Seven years on, The Amalgamut finds Filter a much slicker beast, polished up with the latest studio tricks and touting a fresh, mainstream-friendly songwriting nous that points the way forward, but never quite delivers in full. You've got to respect the way that "American Cliché" and "The Only Way (Is the Wrong Way)" can take carbon-black rage and meld it into chrome-smooth alternative pop songs. The trouble is, all too often, Filter successfully cop the glossy stadium-rock sound and sound-of-the-future production techniques, but forget to throw in the populist hooks to keep anyone interested. "Columind" is rage of the most sterile, impotent kind, while the drippy "The Missing" breaks out the acoustic guitars for a quiet moment that falls dismally flat. Why anyone needs an album like The Amalgamut while similar groups of the calibre of Radiohead and Tool exist is, frankly, something of a mystery. --Louis Pattison

that's what i want!:
Filter is my favorite band ever!The Amalgamut is absolutely energy album from begining to the end.Richard Patrick has very powerfull strong voice,just beautiful voice!Such a wonderful guitar playing and drums!

Great Industrial and Metal CD:
I Love this album "The Amalgamut" with such my favorite songs american cliche and it will never be the same those are my two favorites by them but the whole album is very good i recomend you should by this

God bless Filter:
I've been a big filter fan for some time now and I will always be a huge fan of them. This cd is filled with hard and light guitar playing with killer vocals. Richard Patrick is one of my fav. singers. Why? He's got a powerful and edgy voice. When Filter first started out, the music and lyrics were only done by Richard and some other guy. Where did he come before Filter? From Nine Inch Nails. He played guitar in the band but eventually lost interest in it because of having to play with other industrial sounds. So he formed his own band. Filter's style is still the same and hasn't changed. The only thing you'll find different is that the lyrics are alittle more darker than his last two cd's. But it's so worth the money. So buy it and if you haven't got his last two cd's, buy them too. You'll thank me later.

Dynamic!:
The Amalgamut is a successful combination of the previous stylings of Short Bus and Title of Record. The innovation and heaviness of Short Bus has been combined with the lyrical advances and softer aspects of Title of Record. Richard Patrick has emphasized a new high in contrast and dynamics. Filter's continueing improvement proves that Industrial Rock isn't dead.

A Step in the Wrong Direction:
When Filter's smash acoustic single "Take a Picture" hit the airwaves in late 1999, I was very impressed, but for one reason or another didn't buy their album. Recently, I heard that song on the radio and decided I should finally pick up TITLE OF RECORD, and I was blown away by the atmospheric and soaring melodies. It quickly became one of my favorite albums, so as you can imagine, I was more than a little disappointed to find out that THE AMALGAMUT is at best simply a weaker re-hash of their previous work. To be clear, this isn't a god-awful record that will have you pushing the eject button after two songs; rather, it is such a letdown from the last album that it nearly negates the fact that there are plenty of catchy songs to be found here. The opening track, "You Walk Away," is nothing too impressive or original, but it's sure fun to bang your head to; the same can be said of "American Cliche," except that its lyrics are bad to the point of being distracting. "Where Do We Go from Here" is perhaps the star of the album and was the main single, and for good reason... it's melodic, dynamic, and catchy. At this point I'll just say that the only other tracks I really enjoy are "The Missing," "The Only Way is the Wrong Way," and "God Damn Me." Sadly, all three of those tracks, despite their good atmosphere, are almost identical to certain songs on TITLE OF RECORD. I should also mention "It Can Never Be the Same," which is halfway decent and isn't too derivative. Now for the bad stuff. "My Long Walk to Jail" is fairly pointless, featuring and overly simplistic riff and lots of screaming. "Columind" and "So I Quit" are even more pointless and contain even more screaming; the former features shallow lyrics lashing out against violence in schools but ignoring the cause, while the latter is a laughable string of profanity that goes nowhere. Finally, the final two tracks, "World Today" and "The 4th," are painfully long and unsatisfying. If Filter thought they could entertain us with 15 minutes of Eastern-type music and pseudo-philosophical lyrics, they should think again and leave that kind of thing to Tool and Radiohead. All in all, THE AMALGAMUT isn't a bad album to rock out to every once in a while, but you'll probably be skipping a few too many tracks to make it worth your money. What really does it in is that almost every shining moment it has, with the exception of the fabulous "Where Do We Go from Here," is marred by the fact that you just know you heard that exact riff/melody/etc. on the band's previous album. My advice to general hard rock listeners would be to leave this album for the band's diehard fans while the rest of us enjoy TITLE OF RECORD. 2.6 stars

• You Walk Away
• American Cliche
• Where Do We Go From Here
• Columbind
• The Missing
• The Only Way (Is The Wrong Way)
• My Long Walk To Jail
• So I Quit
• God Damn Me
• It Can Never Be The Same
• World Today
• The 4th