In retrospect, the evidence of Creed's eventual demise is littered all over this album. There was an ominous sense to this CD, which came out to almost no critical acclaim and a rising tide of naysayers in late 2001. Even the make-up of the band had gotten tense: now down to just three members after the unceremonious departure of Brian Marshall, supposedly kicked out of the group for badmouthing Pearl Jam, Mark Tremonti was forced to handle bass duties as well as guitar. In some ways, this fact seemed inexplicable: why didn't Creed just hire the touring bassist that they had played with and gelled with on the end of the Human Clay tour run? It was cited that he was spending time with his own band, but Creed were moneymakers par excellence for whatever criticism they incurred and there was no way a bassist for an independent group would have turned down a chance to join--unless he was warned away, either by a person, or just downright bad behavior. The following tour just made things worse, as singer Scott Stapp earned the eternal (if maybe slightly undeserved) emnity of a huge number of Creed's fans by ruining a few shows by forgetting lyrics and acting high/drunk, and then trying to pass it off as both a statement against critics and a personal expression of "troubled thoughts" he had been feeling at the time, both of which being feeble facades that fans weren't stupid enough to buy.
And then, suddenly and almost without any mention in the major music media outlets, Creed was over. Mark Tremonti and Scott Phillips, insenced and at the end of a rope that had, apparently, long been fraying, broke up the band at the height of its popularity and at the peak of its opposition, forming Alter Bridge and leaving Stapp in a lurch of amorphous solo projects and songwriting for "The Passion of the Christ." The facts of the breakup made a few things all at once clear: Scott Stapp broke up Creed. Scott Stapp ruined Creed. Scott Stapp was an arrogant, pretentious prick, and his bandmates hated him. Creed's critics have been saying as much for a whole decade, and the circumstances around the breakup solidified for many the hatred of Scott Stapp, the most visible face of the hated band.
But Christ-posing and asshattery aside, one thing that many people tend to forget (or ignore) is that, although Stapp's personality dominated the group in every way, the music that the musical element of the group created (Tremonti and Phillips in this case) was always extremely superior to that of their contemporaries. This holds true on their third and most mediocre release, "Weathered:" while Stapp is clearly at the end of his creative emotional well, and his vocals have only gotten worse and less-trained than before, the band behind him have continued to play well, heavy in spots, and in defiance of the "Creed formula" that they had been knocked into.
Creed was:
Scott Stapp: Lead vocals
Mark Tremonti: guitars, bass
Scott Phillips: drums, keyboards
Here's the album track-by-track:
1.) Bullets
This is a great song, even though Stapp's vocals sound very weird and strange in the opening, and it has a lot to do with the great heaviness that Mark and Scott churn out. There's a fantastic, ominous guitar line in the opening as Stapp mutters about how critics criticize his group because they're jealous of his success. Whatever, Scott. When the band bursts in, it's much more aggressive than anything Creed had done up to that point, and it's downright headbangable. If only Scott had done double bass on it (he'd rectify this mistake on Alter Bridge's "Metalingus"), but we know the drill, "Creed formula," etc. Scott's lyrics are terrible, but the music of this song is quite decent.
2.) Freedom Fighter
This, on the other hand, is a disgraceful piece of filler. Showcasing lyrics that are clearly written to make some sort of reference to September 11, with ridiculous lines like "Freedom Fighter, no remorse, raging on in holy war," even the guitar parts to this, while heavy, don't quite go anywhere. Plus, Stapp's vocals are just really bad. At only 2:30, one wonders why on earth they even bothered to put this on here. Matter of fact, it seems as though Stapp manages to sabotage every single Tremonti-driven song on here, as we'll see in the next two: I wonder if it was deliberate? ;)
3.) Who's Got My Back?
Here's another really interesting departure for Creed. Musically, the song is extremely interesting and even borders on epic: it's almost eight minutes long and it doesn't follow any sort of pop-rock format. It opens with a Native American chant (even though in the context of the song it seems a little pointless) and leads into a really, really nice clean guitar passage with an interesting Eastern-style scale. The melodic passages of this song are very different and creative: even the rock parts move with a sort of "epic" momentum. But what's the chorus line, the hook? "Who's....Got my Back Now?" Yeah, great. Way to ruin it.
4.) Signs
This is another really crappy "heavy" tune. Scott claimed throughout Creed's career that he wasn't leading a "Christian band," but these lyrics are the most preposterously conservative preaching I've heard yet from a modern rock band: badly written poetry about how old people aren't neccesarily smart, complaining about how the United States doesn't like religion, saying that it's up to people to stop the divisions that cause racism while insinuating that it's not racist's fault that things are the way they are, and that sex sells and the whole world buys it from the U.S.. Blech. Musically the band is really at a disappointing low, too. This is just no good.
5.) One Last Breath
There's a really pretty fingerstyle riff from Mark Tremonti here, but the ballad is pretty pedestrian. Maybe I'm just biased because this was over-played, but to be perfectly honest I see little that's special about this.
6.) My Sacrifice
This, one the other hand, is a perfectly fine song. Tremonti masters the D5 tuning on this and plays some really pretty guitar throughout. Even Scott's lyrics and his vocal melody are quite stellar. When I listen to this song, I admit it, it lifts me up in the same way "Higher" did the first time I heard it. It's damn catchy and has a great interlude with Tremonti riffing like mad on his guitar. I don't care that THIS was overplayed, because it, unlike "One Last Breath," is not pedestrian.
7.) Stand Here With Me
This is a rare guitar freak-out song for Tremonti in the context of Creed. The lyrics are more trite junk about "belief" and "memories" and "love." Whatever, Scott, you divorced your wife so I don't believe you even know what love is. The chorus is pretty bad too, but the song is redeemed by some nimble playing by Tremonti throughout the verse riffs. And finally, he shreds a really cool solo, which was something I had been dying to hear ever since "Pity for a Dime" off "My Own Prison." Then, of course, Stapp plays up the irony by singing "On and on we sing this song" for about one whole minute. And let me tell you, that's way too long.
8.) Weathered
This song is fine too. There's some really nice guitar work by Tremonti once more, with pretty, bluesy arpeggios and a pretty decently heavy chorus. Stapp's lyrics are mediocre, dealing once again with how he hates his life because critics don't like Creed, but at least they're not overtly terrible like on a few other songs. The "breakdown" is the best part, with a metallic riff from Tremonti.
9.) Hide
Another decent ballad, with some very pretty chords in the verse riff. Matter of fact, the melodies here and the guitar work is very pleasent, and for a while I suspected that this was going to be the big hit single off the album. I don't really understand the lyrics, but they're kind of nice and positive, which is good.
10.) Don't Stop Dancing
The title terrified me, and boy was I right to be. This is incredibly sappy, The lyrics are so incredibly syrupy that I couldn't stand to listen to it even when I was a fan of Creed, and Mark Tremonti's solo is disgraced quickly by the child choir that enters in at the end, not to mention bad backing vocals from Scott's sister. Blech.
11.) Lullaby
A terrible closer, but all things considered, it's a pretty song, with nice acoustic guitar playing by Tremonti. The lyrics don't say "Give love to all" any different than the millions of songs with that message that came before this one, but that's ok. It's calming and I like it, dammit.
Even so, this is a 2, and I'm only saying so out of charity to the band, which tries really hard under the circumstances to remain musically interesting. And often they ARE quite interesting, making Creed's musical aspect quite good, as they always were. But Scott Stapp really lowered the quality of this album by a lot, as you can imagine. I only hope, request in fact, that readers of this review NOT post mindless Creed-bashing, or even Scott-bashing. It's clear that they have a lot of detractors, but many have no real idea what they're talking about, even though Creed DID become pretty bad. I will neg-rep your MX account if I see any mindless "Creed R TEH Suxx0rs." I admit, though, this is thoroughly pedestrian. I reccomend getting "Bullets" "My Sacrifice," and "Stand with Me" seperate: I do NOT recommend the purchase of this whole album.
2.5/5
This Message Edited On 11.13.05
). However, filler runs abound in this as well. Signs is one of the most godawful songs I've ever heard. The music lacks any redeeming quality, and I don't know anything about lyrics, but even I find the lyrics to that song horrid.
