PHILM, the Los Angeles-based trio consisting of Slayer’s Dave Lombardo, War’s Pancho Tomaselli and Civil Defiance’s Gary Nestler, are set to release their debut album Harmonic on May 14th.
The trio originally came together towards the end of 2010, playing a few tour dates and releasing a demo. Harmonic, which was written largely through improvisation and recorded at home on vintage equipment, marks the band’s first official release. Released through Mike Patton’s Ipecac label, it finds the three members heading down different avenues from their other projects – while it keeps the rapid-fire pace and thrashy intensity (Lombardo’s drumming is as ferocious as ever), it regularly slows and heads outward into slower and exploratory territory.
"When people hear about my involvement in PHILM, they automatically assume that it will compare to Slayer’s sound," says Lombardo of the album. "They couldn’t be more different. I have scaled down my drum set to a four-piece, reminiscent of the drummers from the late ’60s that influenced me. Each song is unique in itself, I like to refer to it as ‘rhythmic emotion.’ It’s almost like taking all the heavy songs of the ’60s and bringing that era to a modern plateau, then blending them with the modern trance and psychedelic sounds of today."
