as a sardonic tribute to Kurt Cobain. But no matter what it was about, the single was significant as much for its sonics as for its disturbing imagery.
In the four years since, a new breed of neoindustrialists (Orgy, Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills) has tried to incorporate some of grunge's emotional directness, its world-weary sensuality, into its music. On Title of Record, Filter singer-guitarist Richard Patrick builds on the "Hey Man, Nice Shot" dynamic with an expanded arsenal of musicians. It's an album that finds the band in transition -- Patrick's collaborator, Brian Liesegang, left after the release of Short Bus -- and at a crossroads of modern rock, wiring industrial not only into grunge but also folk, world beat and psychedelia.
Patrick understands that the initial groundbreaking beauty of industrial rock -- at least as tattooed into the underground consciousness by Ministry's The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) -- was how it enthusiastically embraced ugliness. Soon after, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor introduced a new element to Ministry's dehumanizing assault: a sadomasochistic, rubber-suited sexiness. As an alumnus of Reznor's touring band and a resident of Chicago, where Ministry continue to spin ever more noxious variations on the Wax Trax sound, Patrick can't escape their influence.
But whereas Ministry's Al Jourgensen does everything he can to mangle his natural voice, and even Reznor often sounds less human than his machines, Patrick is clearly enamored with the soul-baring wail of Cobain. Patrick is the most expressive and daring of the new industrial rockers, the most willing to expose the vulnerability that lurks behind the jackboots and black leather trench coat. On Title of Record, he sometimes sounds like he's getting in touch with his inner Jeff Buckley, conjuring the tortured croon and aching romanticism of the late folk-soul vocalist.
"I feel like a newborn. . . . I feel so real," Patrick sings, swooping up to grab a falsetto note, over the coffeehouse guitar strum and percolating percussion of "Take a Picture." It's a genuinely pretty moment on a record that positions Patrick not as a bilious aggro-rock mouthpiece but as a postindustrial singer-songwriter, an introspective craftsman as comfortable with an acoustic guitar as he is with a computer.
With the departure of Liesegang, the Filter sound is that of a rock band augmented rather than guided by electronic textures; the melodies are as crucial as the beats per minute, and Patrick is at his best when he lets his pop instincts guide the tunes in unexpected directions. He blends East
