ABOUT PHILM

PHILM

Time Burner

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  With two critically acclaimed full-length releases - 2012’s ‘Harmonic’ and its 2014 follow-up, ‘Fire From the Evening Sun’ - under their belts, extensive international touring from Poland to Colombia, and a major line-up change well behind them, Los Angeles CA experimental rockers, PHILM, are returning with ‘Time Burner’, the group’s most musically daring and mature album to date.
 
Initially taken aback by former drummer Dave Lombardo’s statement to the press that he did not exit PHILM,  “I ended Philm”, vocalist/guitarist/pianist Gerry Nestler (CIVIL DEFIANCE, KKLEQ MUZZIL) and bassist Pancho Tomaselli(WAR, PROJECT N-FIDELIKAH) were intent on carrying on all along although it took overcoming various obstacles - legal and otherwise - including finding a new label, to get things fully back on track. “You know, it was probably an ego thing for Dave to say that the band was over when he left but kind of arrogant when you consider that the original PHILM continued without him when he re-joined SLAYERin early 2002. We actually recorded an album with another drummer at the time but called it KKLEQ MUZZIL instead”, recounts Nestler.  In Lombardo’s place, Nestler and Tomaselli recruited Grammy Award winning Venezuelan born drummer, Anderson Quintero, for the ’Time Burner’ sessions. “It was definitely a rejuvenating time for us creatively speaking. Before there were certain restrictions, stylistic boundaries if you will, whereas the canvas was wide open when we started writing and recording what became ‘Time Burner’.  It was kind of an “anything goes” approach really and it’s made for a more dynamic end result.” 

Recorded and mixed in Los Angeles and New York with Chris Sorem and Nikhil Kamineni, ‘Time Burner’ tosses and turns monolithic Sabbath-like heaviness (‘Steamroller’), Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd psychedelia (’Spanish Flowers’), bluesy, fuzzed out, stoner vibes (‘1942’), and daredevil funk (’Wonka Vision’) with a jarring hardcore urgency, revealing the kind of musical depth previous albums only hinted. Most glaringly, multi-instrumentalist Nestler has taken a page from the old CIVIL DEFIANCE playbook by juxtaposing vintage PHILM assaults such as ‘Cries of the Century’ and ‘The Seventh Sun’ with several piano based pieces, including the album’s epic 11-minute closer, ‘Time Burner’.  “We are still as heavy and intense as ever – we definitely haven’t turned into a jazz band”, laughs Nestler, “but it’s nice to have that contrast.  Tension and release tends to make for a better listening experience. We’re all really pleased with how ‘Time Burner’turned out and I think the best is yet to come for us.”