{"id":40945,"date":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/anthems-for-the-damned\/"},"modified":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","slug":"anthems-for-the-damned","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/anthems-for-the-damned\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthems For The Damned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Imagining Filter making a protest record is as laughable as it is scary. When a group like Filter, whose music is nothing more than a fun alternative to the brooding, more tedious manifestations of industrial music, starts becoming socially conscious and damn serious for the entire length of an album, it means disaster. Although they have tried being socially conscious on previous records (\u201cCancer\u201d from <i>Title Of Record<\/i> and \u201cColumind\u201d and \u201cThe Missing\u201d from <i>The Amalgamut<\/i>), dedicating an entire record to it, complete with a showy album title and very obvious cheesy album cover, is a tad indulgent. Rock music doesn\u2019t need another Bono. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">And for the good of mankind, the world doesn\u2019t get one. <i>Anthems For The Damned<\/i> could\u2019ve turned into the self-absorbed, melodramatic sob-fest that was <i>eMOTIVe<\/i>, another protest album, by <st1:street w:st=\"on\"><st1:address w:st=\"on\">A Perfect Circle<\/st1:address><\/st1:street>, who falls in the same vein as Filter. But despite the heavy theme looming like a dark cloud throughout <i>Anthems<\/i>, Richard Patrick and associates have kept it pretty light and unburdened on the face of it. This album sounds every bit like classic Filter: exciting, upbeat, and extremely accessible. Never in the album does Patrick let his protestor-emotions outshine his musical prowess. Patrick personally might be on a mission, but he has still kept things basic on the record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">This means the guitars are big, showy, and delectable; the drums are meaty, and the tunes are sharp. Even the ballads, despite the passionate themes, do not drip with any extreme sentiment. The kingpin song of the album, \u201cSoldiers Of Misfortune,\u201d has a healthy dose of emotion thanks to Patrick\u2019s contemplative vocals, which nevertheless don\u2019t go too overboard for listeners who really don\u2019t care for Patrick\u2019s efforts of remonstration; at the same time, this track does come across as earnest enough for someone who is searching for a deeper meaning in the music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">There are many great numbers that make this<i> <\/i>a fine album, namely \u201cSoldiers Of Misfortune,\u201d \u201cKill The Day,\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s Next,\u201d (which is reminiscent of \u201cCaptain Bligh\u201d from <i>Title Of Record<\/i> with its nasal high-pitched chorus and a similar riff), and the brilliant closing eulogy \u201cOnly You\u201d and what seems like its extended other half, the tripped-out ambient instrumental \u201cCan Stop This.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Although <i>Anthems<\/i> can be a thoughtful and meaningful record, and even though the words \u201cGeorge Bush is fucking us up\u201d (\u201cWhat\u2019s Next\u201d) doesn\u2019t sound as annoyingly emo when Patrick sings it, what makes this disc a worthwhile listen is not its profundity, but its hooks, drums, and wholesome industrial-pop goodness. The \u201cwar\u201d theme is commendable, but ironically, the album is more enjoyable when it is kept in mind that there isn\u2019t much to Filter than its superb music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":29374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6415],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40945","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-filter","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40945"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40945"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}