Short Bus
Guilty pleasure alert No. 2013: Filter absolutely, positively would not exist without the dirty, gritty musical formulas laid before him by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. The on-the-edge screams, the heavy industrial rhythms, the full-frontal guitar sounds--it's all been done before. And if that weren't enough, vocalist-guitarist-rhythmatist Richard Patrick lived a pre-Filter life as a touring band member in an early version of the aforementioned Nails. Indeed,Short Buscouldn't get more plagiaristically preposterous, and yet--oh, the guilt--this is the perfect disc to primally purge by. From the disc's crunchy opener hit "Hey Man Nice Shot" through to the oh-so-Trent-y "Under" and the slow, stalking beats of the hilariously tagged "Gerbil," this disc is 46 minutes of fiery fun; you could spend time being pissed off at its lack of originality or you could just enjoy it for what it is--sheer walls of white noise.--Denise Sheppard