Crazy Eyes

2016 release, the seventh full-length album from rock giants Filter. The album was produced by Filter frontman Richard Patrick. Reconstruction requires deconstruction. The institutions must be razed in order to clear space for the future to flourish. You tear down the old and build up the new. Filter founder, singer, guitarist, and producer Richard Patrick knows this dance well. It's what established the group as a multi-platinum industrial alternative luminary, and it catalyzed their album, Crazy Eyes. In what can only be seen as a nod to Filter's debut, Short Bus, Crazy Eyes eschews the signature wall of guitars heard on their last release and breathes with a stark, industrialized menace that's equally haunting and hypnotic. Rather than partner with a producer, he took the reins and oversaw production himself. "You recognize it's us from my aggression and singing, but the instrumentation had to change," he admits. "It wasn't about just stacking guitars like we might've done on the last couple records. There are way more electronics and sound design." He collaborated with old friends such as the man behind 1999's seminal platinum-certified Title of Record, producer Ben Grosse [Thirty Seconds To Mars, Marilyn Manson], and Michael "Blumpy" Tuller [Nine Inch Nails]. He also worked closely with new band mates Oumi Kapila [guitar, programming], Ashley Dzerigian [bass], Chris Reeve [drums], and Bobby Miller [keyboards], and former Filter bandmates, Johnny Radke and Danny Lohner. Mixed by Brian Virtue (Janes Addiction, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Deftones) and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Van Halen, Mars Volta, The White Stripes).