Album Review: PHILM - "Fire From the Evening Sun"

Ever since his abrupt and to this day mystifying expulsion from Slayer, there has been a solitary spotlight focused on the activities of drummer Dave Lombardo.  His next move was the subject of much intense scrutiny, as fans worldwide clamored for the barest hint of motion on Camp Lombardo’s part, optimistically hoping that one of the greatest living drummers couldn’t possibly be hanging it up.  A true musicians, Lombardo has rewarded his faithful masses with the second album from side project PHILM, though the continuation of this experimental and musically tangential band may not satiate the frothing appetite of Slayer’s teeming horde.

PHILM is a three-man army, seeing Lombardo accompanied by guitarist/vocalist Gerry Nestler and bassist Pancho Tomaselli.  The band’s mission isn’t so much to straight up rip off the face and feast on the internal organs of their listeners, but instead to baffle and unbalance them with feats of musical creativity, tangential songwriting and by design changes in time signature.

To that end, Lombardo is, almost by default, the central highlight of PHILM’s “Fire From the Evening Sun.”  His admirable talent is on full display; he fills with unique rolls, allows the music to build upon the percussive foundation of his metronomic accuracy and he even manages to toss in a few truly thrash cadences without them sounding like thrash at all.  As with all Lombardo projects not named Slayer, we are allowed to see the breadth of the man’s musical interest, as he turns away from the hard-nosed metal that made him famous, the groove of Grip, Inc and the wild meandering of Fantomas.  Instead, we see PHILM as a thinking man’s punk band, though that meager epithet fails to accurately describe all the dimensions on display.

In the press heralding the coming of “Fire From the Evening Sun,” each member spoke about wanting to keep the listener guessing and focusing on the sudden intensity of song and rhythm changes.  Well, the band has accomplished that in spades, as there is an inherent groove to songs like the title track or the Clapton-toned “Silver Queen” that is offset by the cacophonous and riff-breaking changes within the same composition.  It’s a hard record to nail down at any individual moment, but that’s what makes the rewarding moments even more so – the recognition of a sudden burst of accessibility is a welcome development.

That in and of itself breeds a sort of existential music argument, which is whether or not listeners should have to look for those hooks to find enjoyment in the songs.  There’s no easy answer to that, and the tolerance and appreciation for those very themes will vary wildly for each individual.  There are those who will find great value in the sparse anticipation of “Lions Pit,” but just as many will lament that same construction.

The weak link of the musicians themselves is Nestler, whose vocals presence is somewhat akin to Trent Reznor trying to sing Rollins Band covers.  His alternate screaming and carousing can be very jarring “Train” for one,) and uneasy, and that despite the context of an album that listeners have already accepted might be jarring and uneasy.  Nestler’s guitar playing is perfectly fine and fits well within the greater idiom of PHILM, but his brackish singing steals the spotlight from his other highly evident talents.

“Fire From the Evening Sun” is an exhibition of metal as a sort of performance art, which is a rare spectacle with more depth and academic intrigue than even the vaunted math metal of bands like Dillinger Escape Plan.  This is an album by artists and largely for them as well, so PHILM’s new record likely won’t be considered every day listening by the majority of metal fans as a group.  It certainly, for the record, is not Slayer, which is perfectly fine, the album is under no obligation to fill that void in the first place.  That said, the merits of Dave Lombardo’s new album will be graded on an entirely subjective curve, as each fan must determine their own criteria of enjoyment.