[Review] Army of Anyone

 

Army of Anyone

The magic of Wikipedia introduced me to Army of Anyone's debut album after I looked up the recent history of Stone Temple Pilots.  As it turns out, the group Army of Anyone contains the lead singer of Filter, and the bass player and guitarist from Stone Temple Pilots (Robert and Dean DeLeo, respectively). 

Speaking of STP, I have a little rant to get out of the way about them first.  Stone Temple Pilots took a lot of flack for mating grunge rock with arena rock.  They were savaged in reviews by many rock critcs, who acknolwedged their skills but called them crass, cheap imitators. 

There are a few problems with this analysis.  One is that STP wasn't really grunge at all.  Their first Album, Core, was more metal than anything else.  Yes, "Plush" did sound like Pearl Jam to me too when I first heard it.  But I was young and foolish then.  Even back then, if you listened to Core you could see how Plush fit in with the rest of the album.  It wasn't some random, slapped-in song conceived solely to exploit trends of that era.  It was a song that happened to fit in with the trends of that era - a fact their handlers exploited to great effect; Core would be released about a year after Pearl Jam's Ten.  STP would never win any points for originality -- their first effort hearkened back to 70s arena rock with a dab of 90s grunge angst here and there.   Then again, Jamiroquai and Maroon 5 aren't very original either, and the critics never tatooed those acts with the same level of venom.  We aren't talking about Bush or Nickelback here.

After Core came perhaps their best album, Purple.  This work was almost a self-cosncious departure from the angst and distortion-driven Core.  It still wasn't the most original material, but it was a departure - and boy, was it diverse.  Purple proved that as songwriters, few could match STP in the 90s.  Yet many critics still attacked them for having no personality and no soul; one memorably compared "Meatplow" to an Alice In Chains song, and compared "Interstate Love Song" to Pearl Jam's "Daughter".  Of course, those comparisons made zero sense -- but by that point STP was the go-to whipping boy of choice for music reviewers.   They were too polished and popular for their own good. 

As the put out their 3rd, 4th and 5th albums, STP driffted farther and farther from their metal/arena/dash-of-grunge roots.  Critics actually warmed up to them a bit.  Internal tensions driven by singer Scott Weiland's drug problems eventually ended the group.  Weiland ended up fronting Velvet Revolver, drummer Eric Kretz opened a SoCal studio...and the DeLeo brothers ended up in Army of Anyone. 

And, interestingly, ended up releasing a debut album at least as goos as Velvet Revolver's Contraband. 

The first half of this album is pure dynamite.  There are perhaps two songs that they might want to take back, but this is as solid a debut as I've heard from a modern rock act in what seems like forever.  The drumming isn't as good as in STP, the lead guitar work (like in STP) is on the limper side, and the lead vocals aren't as flashy.  But the vocals are much more consistent and steady, while two of STP's main strengths (great songwriting and fantastic bass) remain very evident.  There are some tracks that stand out even from this excellent collection, including "It Doesn't Seem To Matter", "Goodbye", "A Better Place" and "Disappear". 

I give Army of Anyone's self-titled debut 4 OP Golden mics.  It's just a shame the public has mostly moved away from music like this over the past few years, or these guys would be in heavy rotation.  

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