Creeper Lagoon - Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday - Dreamworks

Review by: Chris Boehk

I've been waiting for this record for a while, so I picked it up right when it came out. I've known about Creeper Lagoon since my girlfriend bought their CDEP from 1997 a year or two ago. I really like that little CD. Songs like "Dear Deadly" and "Empty Ships" are excellent songs, and very original sounding. Since we couldn't get into see them at SXSW, I was really interested to see what they were up to these days.

Sad to say that whatever originality this band used to possess, it's gone now. I like some of the songs on here, they're catchy, radio-oriented songs, but they are not original sounding at all. For the most part, this record sounds like a cross between Radiohead (The Bends-era) and the Wallflowers. If that isn't a formula for radio play, I don't know what is.

Now, I don't want to come across as saying this is complete crap, because its not. These songs are a pleasant listen (I dare you to keep from tapping your foot), and the production (with a major label budget, of course) is very good. You can tell that they spent a long time putting this album together and I can appreciate that.

Unfortunately, in the age of Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears, I don't think this album is going to be pushed one bit by their label, and that's too bad because I think that its got the potential to be liked by a lot of people. And since that's usually the point of signing to a major, I feel bad for these guys. It doesn't matter to me whether they sink or swim as far as major-label-land goes, I just hope they can keep it together and get back to writing intelligent, original songs.