Creeping Up On Jesus

It's easy to see why Warner Brothers had such high hopes for the Big Dish — practically every track sounds like it was made with the hit-singles chart in mind. That, in fact, is the problem with Creeping up on Jesus, the band's second album. There are in fact some good, catchy, intelligent songs here, but they're buried under several layers of studio gloss. Producer Bruce Lampcov had previously worked with Simple Minds and Lloyd Cole, and he had the pop formula down pat. The problem is that the Big Dish didn't have as distinctive a frontman as either of those bands, one who could impose a personality through the strings, horns, and echoing drums. Steven Lindsay's voice is beautiful, but he is competing with too much atmosphere. If there had only been a few more live-in-the-studio tracks like "Wishing Time," everyone could have had a better idea of who this band was and what they might have become. As it is, a few tracks still succeed through sheer gifted songcraft and heartfelt performances, but only enough to show that this good band could have been great.