Filter - Crazy Eyes

Twenty years since their debut album (I know, try not to think about it too much) Filter have birthed Crazy Eyes, and the industrial guitar-backed insanity is almost palpable.

Mother E is a belter of an opener - dark and angry with a relentless chorus of “I’ve got my reasons and my reasons are sound”, as Richard Patrick builds his whispers into screams. You wouldn’t think such an innocuous sentence could sound so menacing. As each track plays out the comparisons to Nine Inch Nails are obvious (Patrick did time with Trent ‘back in the day’) but Patrick’s vocals are unmistakably pure Filter and make such comparisons redundant. There’s an organic feel across the album, with guitars at the forefront of many of the tracks, but the industrial element is still very much present and barely restrained. Nothing In My Hands has a rhythm that makes you feel as if you’re being followed. Pride Flag is almost uplifting, with a shredding beat, and a rushing, almost classic, guitar solo. Welcome To The Suck is the ‘quiet track’. Well, as ‘quiet’ as Filter does - the distorted determination seeps through even in the softer moments, while Your Bullets is an anthemic ‘fuck you’ song. Under The Tongue is a trippy industrial-electro almost-instrumental with a surprise drum break. The album culminates in a spaced-out acoustic reprise.