Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 5/14/2021
Production: Michael Sweet & Tracii Guns
Album length: 48:23 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
Sunbomb is a music project where L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns and Stryper frontman, the boss of the Christian metallers, Michael Sweet have joined creative forces! The two are now unveiling their joint debut, called “Evil And Divine.” Funny how the wheel of fate turns: both musicians have well-known reputations and plenty of mileage, which has firmly etched them onto the rock and metal map of the world, yet they only officially met quite recently. So they haven’t known each other long, but they wasted no time striking a deal that maybe, someday down the line, they’d try recording some music together.
With all their commitments to other projects and to their home bands, there was still enough time and space for one more. Tracii Guns has, together with Phil Lewis, actually already wrapped up work on the new L. A. Guns album, while the tireless workaholic Michael Sweet, who recorded and released an album with Stryper last September, and put out his latest solo studio album just before that, isn’t wasting any time either: he’s making a new Sweet & Lynch album with George Lynch.
Back to Sunbomb. Already during the promo phase, before the album dropped, Sweet and Guns served up four singles that were brimming with optimism. It’s clear that whatever Sweet puts out can only be good, very good, or perfect. Guns, too – especially after reuniting with Phil Lewis and reviving the classic L.A. Guns – isn’t stingy with creative fire and freshness, so it was obvious from the get-go that Sunbomb would be a very interesting project in every respect.
On “Evil And Divine,” it’s all out in the open. Metal. Classic blueprints. Old school. But nobody could have expected the record to be this dark, while also being delivered so fiercely and with such a bristling edge. The production is raw, cranked-up, greasy, it speaks to you live and moves walls. The performance is intensely felt and cocky. Unbridled. Fully committed. All in. Tracii’s guitar phrases, thanks to their incredible elemental design, are also exceptionally penetrating and instantly predatory. There was hardly any studio polishing of the sound, or very, very little of it. Even the solos were mostly played and caught on “tape” in the first take. Sweet sings like it’s Judgment Day, the last day of humanity before the full apocalypse, when the sky turns leaden gray and the sun has stopped shining forever. Everything is teetering on the edge and speaks with a theatrical, apocalyptic nature.
The guitar phrasing shows a musical devotion to the key players of the pioneering era: Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin and, of course, Black Sabbath. Traces of inspiration can also be found in the legacy of the N.W.O.B.H.M. days and the old school of American speed metal. Keep in mind that this time around, all the riffs were written by Tracii Guns, even though Michael Sweet is a guitarist too! And the phrasing is distinctly dark. Three songs on the album make no secret of their obvious cozying up to seventies Black Sabbath. These are Take Me Away, Stronger Than Before and World Gone Wrong, which owe their inspiration to Tony Iommi, and don’t hide their doom metal character either.
In short, “Evil And Divine” is a first-rate grenade of sharpened metal preaching that speaks in a different voice. Even considerably different from what you’d expect. The mix of ruinous touch and dramatic theatricality is excellently complemented by the musical payoff generated by the predatory melodies of Michael Sweet’s fascinatingly penetrating vocal character. The standout singer has once again handled his vocal duties at the top level of his well-known and recognized expression. The nature of melancholy that would crack even the most granite, frozen heart! Whether it’s the distinctly pouty Live, which opens the album, or the no less voltage-charged No Tomorrows, or the excellent acoustic, bombastically dramatic Been Said And Done – all three are at the very peak of the highlights of “Evil And Divine.”
Clearly, the Sweet/Guns team-up has delivered more than expected! With its bristling, distinctly gloomy nature, the record is interesting even to those who traditionally steer clear of Stryper on the one hand, because of the band’s “eternal obsessions” with Biblical tales, or of L.A. Guns on the other, because of their glam rocker reputation from the recent history of rock ‘n’ roll. Evil And Divine is a manifesto loaded with the weight of melancholy and the wrecking-ball fury of heartfelt expression from two seasoned musical talents who, as a team, have clicked more than impressively.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Life
2. Take Me Away
3. Better End
4. No Tomorrows
5. Born To Win
6. Evil And Divine
7. Been Said And Done
8. Stronger Than Before
9. Story Of The Blind
10. World Gone Wrong
11. They Fought
Lineup:
Tracii Guns – guitar
Michael Sweet – vocals
Adam Hamilton – drums
Mitch Davis – bass
Johnny Martin – bass on track no. 11
