Are You Ready?	01						04:45
	What If	02						05:18
	Beautiful	03						04:20
	Say I	04						05:15
	Wrong Way	05						04:19
	Faceless Man	06						05:59
	Never Die	07						04:51
	With Arms Wide Open	08						04:35
	Higher	09						05:17
	Wash Away Those Years	10						06:04
	Inside Us All	11						05:49
	Young Grow Old	12						03:55

October 18, 1999

Creed
Human Clay
(Wind-Up)

Creed's highly anticipated second album is vivid proof that the Florida quartet's knack for striking grungy, charismatic poses hasn't abated a bit since it struck quadruple-platinum pay dirt with its 1997 debut.

These tunes all bristle with the same crunchy guitars, churning rhythms, and raspy angst that drove Creed (not to mention kindred spirits like Third EyeBlind and Matchbox 20) to Soundscan success.

Frontman Scott Stapp hammers home his calculatedly unaffected sentiments in a voice that falls somewhere between Joe Cocker, Alice in Chains' Layne Staley and Motorhead main man Lemmy Kilmister but without achieving the focused, gut-level impact of those singers.

Despite the enthusiasm with which he tackles topics like spurned love and carefully veiled religious themes, there are few tracks where feeling and form meet equally. Mark Tremonti is an agile guitarist, and his gripping riffs, moody reverberating lines and stinginglicks add a distinct stylistic edge to the pedestrian hard-rock numbers,but in mellower moments ("Never Die"), even his most skillful ambient flourishes can't keep the tunes from meandering off track.

Creed is most vulnerable during power ballads, not because the songs actually reveal anytender emotional insights, but because they blatantly expose the group'sreal soft spot: its songwriting.

Technically, the guys in Creed are adept players and when the songwriting works, and they pull out the stops("Higher," "What If"), they pull off some reasonably compelling music. But ultimately, Human Clay feels like passion by numbers.�