Human Clay

09/28/1999 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Rob O'Connor

There once was a band called Nazareth who had a singer who sang like a rabid dog in desperate need of a leg to chew on. That Creed, another band with a biblically related name, should also have a singer with such an approach suggests that hard-rock spirituality is meant to unleash the beast within and that God likes dogs, which if you notice spelled backwards...oh never mind.

Human Clay is solid hard rock--the kind that whenever you hear something quiet and spooky, you know it will soon be followed by something loud and aggressive. They don't kowtow to trends: no gratuitous hip-hop beats, just workingman rock from guys who--no matter what they say to the contrary--sound an incredible amount like the northwest grunge bands filtered through an East Coast metal thing. Even the ballad "With Arms Wide Open" about becoming a father has a strident heaviness. Now just imagine these guys trampling through church pews. Yikes!