Everywhere you go, you see it: that huge poster, telling you that grunge rockers Creed are currently the best selling band in America. So best-selling are they in fact, that now, nine million copies of their second album, 'Human Clay', have been passed over US counters. Nine million!
That's one-and-a-half times the population of London. Impressive, eh? Perhaps, but just remember that our transatlantic chums spend their hard earned dollars on Counting Crows and Matchbox 20 records, and actually enjoy eating Hershey bars.
Although lacking in both chocolate crunchy bits and Matchbox man Rob Thomas's tales of life on the streets, 'Human Clay' is yet another example of the great American taste bypass. The first clue is the band name. Call me a cynical, narrow-minded bastard but choosing Creed immediately makes me think "tiresome politically-correct/religious w**ker". Imagine my surprise then, on discovering that Creed were indeed idealistic Christians, preoccupied with naive visions of human betterment.
Not that that automatically makes you sh*t (I mean, Sixpence None The Richer did have one good song, didn't they? Didn't they?) but it usually means naffdom in the lyrics department. And it does here - however laudable the wish to improve oneself and one's quality of life might be in principle, when it's expressed as "let the children play/Inside your heart always/And death you will defy" ('Never Die') you need a puke bag onhand. And - gadzooks! - we haven't even started on the music!
That won't make you puke, unless you have a phobia of Pearl Jam and everything related to them. If Creed stop selling nine million records, singer Scott Stapp could always work as an Eddie Vedder doppleganger. No opportunity of doing the croon drawl, made popular by Mr Vedder from those days of 'Alive', is ever lost.
Backing him, the band do their best impersonations of the pearly kings -the stonky wall-rending riffs ('What If'), the rock outs ('Never Die'), the serious balladry (the single 'With Arms Wide Open'). But they're even more bland, even more dull than recent Pearl Jam, taking their trademark lengthy-guitar-break-in-place-of-imagination trick to snooze-inducing lengths. Ultimately, Creed are mere Stars in Their Eyes contenders. For the heats.
