Own Prison is a lot heavier and more grunge-oriented than other Creed albums. The lyrics on the album include themes like Christianity, faith, sinning, and The music on the album has been described as grunge, alternative metal and heavy metal. Jon Parales of The New York Times compared the album to the Badmotorfinger era of Soundgarden. He also compared the album's music to Hootie & the Blowfish and compared the song "Unforgiven" to Metallica. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that "Creed don't have an original or distinctive sound -- they basically fall into the category of post-Seattle bands who temper their grunge with a dose of Live earnestness". In 1997, when My Own Prison first brought Creed some attention from the mainstream, Bradley Bambarger of Billboard wrote that Creed sound "disconcertingly reminiscent of Alice in Chains". Justin Seremet of the Hartford Courant wrote that Creed "is essentially Alices in Chains without the bite" He compared singer Stapp's vocals to Alice in Chains deceased singer Layne Staley. He described the album as "scrunge", which he defined as "the adopted name for groups that rode the Seattle wave with a couple of hits and subsequently vanished -- bands like Silverchair, Sponge, Candlebox and so on." In a review of My Own Prison, The Spokesman-Review described Creed as "slightly heavy metal, slightly alternative." The New Rolling Stone Album Guide described the album as being influenced by 1970s stadium rock, and wrote that the album includes "thundering metallic tracks and sweeping ballads". Phil Freeman of Stereogum wrote: Creed lead singer Scott Stapp was influenced heavily by U2's album The Joshua Tree and was also influenced by The Doors and Led Zeppelin. Despite being inspired by The Doors, Led Zeppelin and U2, Creed was compared frequently by critics to Tool, Soundgarden and, most frequently, Pearl Jam. In response to the Pearl Jam comparison, Stapp said: "It could be worse," he says. "They could be comparing us to some shitty band that no one has ever heard of, rather than the biggest band of the decade." Tremonti also was okay with the Pearl Jam comparison: "It doesn't bother me so much. They're one of the best bands to come out in the past 10 years." Stapp left his home when he was 17 years old to enroll in "the school of hard knocks," Stapp said, and it was in the latter days during this education