Band : Creed
Album Title : Full Circle
Label : Wind-Up Records/EMI
Distribution : EMI
Release date : October 2009
Review : CD

Who would have thought that? In 2004, after several disagreements between singer Scott Stapp and the rest of the band, mostly due to Stapp’s alcohol and drug abuse, Creed disbanded. On the one hand, guitar player Mark Tremonti, bass player Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips formed a new band, Alter Bridge, together with former The Mayfield Four-singer Myles Kennedy and released the albums “One Day Remains” (2004) and “Blackbird” (2007). On the other hand, Scott Stapp released the solo album “The Great Divide” (2005), dealt with his addictive demons, suffered a depression and finally found himself back.

And now, in 2009, with all the troubles sorted out, Creed are back with a brand new album, that follows immediately after a very successful reunion tour in the USA. To reassure fans of Alter Bridge: all members confirmed that the reformation of Creed doesn’t mean the end of Alter Bridge. “Full Circle” is the fourth studio album of the American post-grunge band Creed. The band formed in 1995 in Orlando, Florida and released prior to “Full Circle” three best-selling albums, “My Own Prison” (1997), “Human Clay” (1999) and “Weathered” (2001), whose aggregated sales figures exceed 35 million albums worldwide.

And the magic still works. The heavy rock songs have enough power to blow you away, the metallic-edged guitar riffs of Mark Tremonti make you want to play air guitar, the appealing voice of Scott Stapp still has passion to offer, the ballads give shivers down your spine and the honest lyrics are not larger than life. Creed sound re-born.
“Full Circle” contains 12 songs, was produced by famous producer Howard Benson and has a playing time of 51 minutes. Highlights of the album are the opening track and first single “Overcome”, “Bread Of Shame”, “Suddenly”, the second single “Rain”, the power ballads “Away In Silence” and “On My Sleeve”, the title track “Full Circle” and “Good Fight”. On December 8th 2009, the DVD “Creed Live” was released. This DVD was shot with not less than 239 cameras (a Guinness Book World Record!) and contains the concert of Houston, September 25th 2009.

Creed continue touring, from March 2010 on, starting with another US tour, followed by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe. Unconfirmed rumours mention a possible live date of Creed at the Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands. While Creed are busy touring, Myles Kennedy is recording a solo album. Other plans for the future include that Scott Stapp is working on his second solo album, “Heaven’s Cry”, and might play live dates with his side project called Broken Rose (with ex-touring Creed bassist Brett Hestla and Sevendust drummer Morgan Rose). The group’s debut, “Flowers On Fire”, was already recorded in 2008 and is set to be released in April of 2010.

Alter Bridge is an ongoing project and the release of the live DVD “Live From Amsterdam” is scheduled for February 2010, followed by the release of a new Alter Bridge album, the third one, probably somewhere in the second half of 2010.

90/100

Erik.