#8 - Army of Anyone

Army of Anyone - Army of Anyone (Firm Music)
Supergroups usually fail to deliver on the "super" part in their names and put out albums that leave you thinking "maybe these guys should go back to their old groups and give it another try." Fortunately, Army of Anyone makes up for the disappointing releases by other supergroups (Velvet Revolver, Audioslave) of the last decade.

With star talent pooled from two of the biggest alternative rock bands of the '90s (Filter, Stone Temple Pilots), Army of Anyone's well-crafted debut sounds like the work of a band on it's fourth or fifth album, not it's first. The DeLeo brothers – guitarist Dean and bassist Robert – of Stone Temple Pilots fame get to play the roles of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones on the Zeppelin-inspired tracks "It Doesn't Seem to Matter" and "Leave It" which sounds like a distant cousin to Zeppelin's "Kashmir". Former Filter front man Richard Patrick doesn't have the range of Robert Plant – or even the DeLeo's former bandmate Scott Weiland for that matter – but his clean vocal style, with moments of sandpaper grit, compliment the DeLeo's playing.

While Patrick's stripped away any hint of his past as the guitarist for Nine Inch Nails, he does cling to the success he had with Filter's biggest single, "Take a Picture," and carries over that style of songwriting to a few tracks on Army of Anyone's album, particularly "Stop, Look and Listen" and "This Wasn't Supposed to Happen". Army of Anyone's debut is a perfect example of what can happen when the members of these so-called supergroups work together to bring in the best that each has to offer rather than allowing each musician to just play their part.