ARMY OF ANYONE

ARMY OF ANYONE is the third major "supergroup" to emerge in the last several years, following the debut of AUDIOSLAVE in 2002 and VELVET REVOLVER two years later. In this case, the band consists of former STONE TEMPLE PILOTS guitarist Dean DeLeo, his brother and bandmate Robert DeLeo on bass, FILTER vocalist Richard Patrick and dubious pantheon entrant Ray Luzier, late of the David Lee Roth band, behind the drums. The DeLeo brothers' credentials as writers and players are rock solid due to their sterling work on all five STP albums, while Patrick — who operated FILTER more or less as a one-man operation — delivered two promising albums before fading out with the lackluster "The Amalgamut" a few years ago. We won't criticize Luzier, a talented drummer, for simply making a living with the pathetic Roth.

This 11-song debut, however (recorded initially for Columbia Records, now released through Firm Music, a subsidiary of the band's management company),falls prey to the same issues that hampered VELVET REVOLVER (which features ex-STP frontman Scott Weiland) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, AUDIOSLAVE: a combination that looks great on paper and may even feel great in the studio ultimately yields less than the sum of its parts. Most of the material, in fact, sounds like it was written for a nonexistent sixth STP album, with many of the DeLeos' trademark riffs and melodies surfacing here.

To be sure, even mediocre material from the brothers displays a craftsmanship lacking in most modern rock bands, but Patrick is a much different and less chameleonic singer than Weiland, so the results sound like he is either trying to emulate the latter or simply stretch his own style thin to fit the DeLeos' music.

Perhaps as the band tours and develops more as a unit, their natural talents will blend more smoothly (although the jury is still out on whether that has happened for either AUDIOSLAVE or VELVET REVOLVER) and more distinctive material will emerge. As it stands, "Army of Anyone" is filled with generic alternative rock, with some songs leaning heavier ("Generation") and others aiming straight for ballad country ("Stop Look and Listen"). Like our own beleaguered U.S. forces, this army is trying to do too much with too little.