Creed progresses with ‘Weathered’
By Zach Cotter
Contributing Reviewer

In the late ’90s it seemed as though every rock band wanted to experiment with a new sound. No one wanted to play just straight-up rock. Then in 1997, Creed hit the scene with their debut album My Own Prison – the first real rock album to come out in quite a while. Featuring four hit singles it established the band so well that within a year they were headlining their own tour.

Then with the release of Human Clay in 1999, Creed broadened the scope of their music with two number one hits, “Higher” and “With Arms Wide Open,” both of which managed to get airplay in the mainstream pop rotation. Now, with Weathered, featuring the hit single “My Sacrifice,” Creed has taken their music even farther while experimenting with a slightly different sound.

The new album features a variety of tracks that include some of the hardest rock and the softest ballads the band has recorded to date. Songs like “Bullets,” and “Freedom Fighter,” which are heavy songs with loud guitars, characterize the first part of the album.

Guitarist Mark Tremoni demonstrates why Paul Reed Smith Guitars has a signature model guitar named after him with some incredible solo work on several of the songs on the album. Not since the band’s first album has he truly gotten to blaze like he does in the song “Stand here with me,” which also highlights the strength of vocalist Scott Stapp’s voice.

In the spirit of “One” and “Higher” comes the first single off the album, “My Sacrifice,” which will probably serve as the band’s concert closer when their tour starts early next year. Also of note is “Who’s Got My Back?” an eight-minute track that includes an Indian chant, keyboards (played by drummer Scott Phillips) and bongo drums, yet still stays true to Creed’s sound.

For those listeners who tend to favor the band’s softer side, the song “Hide” offers a ballad in the tradition of “With Arms Wide Open” which features some of the most poetic writing on the album. It appears to be the most likely candidate to be released for radio play early next year.

Also, if you have ever stayed up at night wondering what it would be like to hear a baritone interpretation of a lullaby, then the last track, “Lullaby,” is for you – and believe me: it is entertaining to hear Stapp try, and succeed, in hitting the high notes of this simple acoustic melody.

Lyrically, the album is much darker and not nearly as openly poetic as “Human Clay.” This is not to say it lacks any of depth for which Creed is so well known. If anything, the lyrics go deeper into some of the themes present on past albums. However, for the majority of songs, Creed explores the theme of the aptly named title track in which Stapp writes: “Me … I am rusted and weathered/ Barely holding together/ I’m covered with the skin that peels and it just won’t heel.”

With lyrics are that are not only genuinely original, but that have a depth to them, Creed’s music has been easy to recognize against so much of that which often gets radio play.

“Weathered” also marks the band’s first attempt to record an album since the departure of bassist Brian Marshall. In absence he is dearly missed as the depth of the bass parts, recorded by Tremoni as a fill-in, lack the complexity that has characterized the band’s music in the past. The title track particularly cries out for something with more emotion than the rather mundane bass line that sounds like it could have been recorded by any other band.

What has set Creed apart from so many other bands in the past has been that the entire band played well together – each complimenting the others, while at the same time, each member was among the most respected in the music field on their instruments. While Tremoni makes due filling in for Marshall, the bass is not his instrument and it shows. Songs on the earlier albums like “My Own Prison,” “T’orn” and “Say I” show what the band was capable of and it is a shame to see that era come to an end.