Scott Stapp - The Great Divide Album Review

Scott Stapp
The Great Divide
Album Review

With the insistent weight of Scott Stapp being "The Grammy Award winning voice of Creed" already pressing upon you before the CD hits the deck, coupled with the fact that even the cover features Scott singing in what we assume to be a suitably earnest fashion, it is no surprise to learn that this is all about "The Voice".

There is nothing wrong with music that features a distinct vocal characteristic. Alice in Chains' Layne Stayley, god rest him, added rich, harmonic beauty to the sound of AIC without dominating it. Sadly Scott Stapp makes exactly that mistake though, with the music taking a backseat to the vocals. It sounds as though the mix engineer (probably against his better judgement) has pushed that vocal fader just too far. The vocal is not only overly earnest, pretentiously tortured, and ridiculously cringe-worthy, it's also just too damn high in the mix.

Tearing your ears away from the voice to the songs, you find yourself in some sort of sub-grunge-lite world of mediocrity, as though you've discovered a big suitcase of Pearl Jam songs that even they wouldn't unleash upon the world. Hopefully this solo outing will quell any more desires within Scott to fill his lungs to this ridiculous extent.

Richard Edge