Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Stryper
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2013
Running time: 53:12
Rating: 5/5
Stryper are back. With their eighth album. The very same Stryper who count as one of the central figures of the movement known as Christian rock. It flourished in the golden age of melodic rock, meaning the eighties. That is, before the »grunge« boom.
Stryper are still active today in their original lineup. The quartet already put out one album this year. That’s »Second Coming«, which features newly re-recorded classics from the band. That »overture« to the actual process of recording new material turned out to be an extremely good move for Stryper. But let’s take it from the top.
Without mincing words, we can say the new album is a return to their roots. With the key difference that it kept the vampirized metal production of the »Second Coming« album. And maybe even more importantly. There isn’t a drop of sweetener on it. That means most of the tracks are built on minor keys – the lead melodies are based on the minor, so the album feels fierce and especially dark, like no Stryper album to this day. What does that mean, and what does it bring Stryper in their new era? A big trump card, one that throws the doors wide open for the band to seize a first-rate opportunity: the new songs can ring out carefree and confident next to their famous classics in every live set of the new millennium. In that respect, there’s only one thing to say! Guys, hats off to this excellent record. You tinkered with it for a long time, after a by no means bad but slightly surprising predecessor, »Muder By Pride« (2009). Looking past the album »Murder By Pride«, Stryper first looked back to the album »Reborn« (2005), but they didn’t stop there. With their sights set on inspiration, they went all the way back to their early creative period. Releasing »Second Coming« was obviously a more than welcome move. It helped the band relive their most fruitful years of creating, and of success too, and pour them through a time machine into new guitar phrases. For the new album, that is. From the first note to the last, it’s bristling and production-wise cranked up.Yes. Just as was »foretold« at the start of this piece. We can safely say that »No More Hell To Pay« is the heaviest and darkest-sounding album of Stryper’s entire career.
There must obviously be something very positive about Stryper being a Christian rock band. Just because the quartet managed to hold on in the original lineup all these years. The guys must share a purely friendly bond. With Stryper, you might actually start to believe that respecting the 10 Commandments does humanity good. Even after two thousand years of complete delusion Evidently everything is totally smoothed out among the guys in the quartet. The Stryper crew breathes for the same thing, heads tuned to the same frequency, no hide-and-seek. The band is warmed up to the right working temperature, where the realization of every idea that’s bubbling up is more than confident. That creates room for a big pile-up of creative energy, which is capitalized on in the top-notch songs of the new album and which is therefore hard to disappoint with.
From the massive-sounding dialogue of the two guitars in the phrases, through the tasty interweaving of juicy solos, all the way to the brilliant packaging of decorative ornaments carried off in seductive triplets. Reigning over it all is an outstanding vocal performance from Michael Sweet, who shows no wear or rust that might have happened to latch onto the singer over the years. Over the years the voice has gained a touch of »oomph«, and especially in the mid to high registers Sweet still develops outstanding vocal power, with which he dominates the chosen melody. In carrying that power from the mid to the higher and highest registers, Sweet has kept all his confidence (Sympathy). A top-class performance from the singer, then. Along the way there’s no shortage of some sky-ripping »screams« (the outro of the song Marchiing Into Battle), and when Stryper paint Sweet’s lead vocal with backing vocals too (harmonizing the tunes), the songs start to glitter with all the bombast they’ve captured.
Above all, what stands out on the album is the pronounced pulsing of the rhythm section. The drums carry a mighty echo, backed by thrusts of a bass line that kicks with a thick foot across the album. In short, this contrast between the scorching metallized riffs, the crumbling pulsing of the rhythm section and Michael Sweet’s explosive vocals works superbly on the new album, and you just wish more melodic rock bands today would use this kind of solution in their search for the optimal production of their albums’ sound.
»No More Hell To Pay« doesn’t carry a single solitary ballad. It’s hard to pick the highlights of the album. The songs breathe. They’re extremely varied in their lead phrases, they carry an extremely catchy, escalating transfer of mood from verse through pre-chorus to the chorus, in which every song experiences an atmospheric crescendo.. The album is packed with pomp aesthetics. Michael Sweet and company know exactly how to serve that.. There isn’t a moment where anything goes wrong in terms of arrangement and songwriting, or in terms of the choices made in the sound production. From the opening, medium-paced Revelation, weighed down by a lumbering riff, through the devilishly well-done cover of the Doobie Brothers original in the song Jesus Is Just Allright, which sounds like one of the band’s own songs, to the fantastic closing super stampede of a charge, Renewed. An album that, with all the characteristics it so effectively embraces for building a highly vibrant voltage, instantly puts the goosebumps on your skin into a state of erection and bristling. This highly atmospheric range of effective moods doesn’t let up for a second across the album. And what’s especially satisfying is how things develop on the album, in a way that until now was more the exception than the rule with Stryper. It develops fiercely dark! Darker than anyone could have expected. And that’s good, because it’s a big positive surprise!
The solos on this release are, of course, yet another especially tantalizing type of superbly carved element that builds the compositions. They’re played with an outstanding feel for the right placement of notes. The middle passages (so-called »middle eights«, read: »mid-eights«) deepen the atmosphere in the songs, which means they do their proper job, at least when we’re talking about how solos get worked into the melodic rock genre.
With an album this bristling and this perfectly composed, Stryper can proudly rule the concert stages next year. Let’s hope the tour carries them to Europe too. As said. The new songs work so well, and so close to the band’s best times, that it’ll be a real treat to experience a live mix of old and new songs at a Stryper show. In that respect, recording the performances for a potential live album is also advisable. The band has obviously ridden a new giant wave of creativity that can move mountains, so it pays to strike while the iron is hot.
»No More Hell To Pay« is thus the third studio album since the band’s reunion. They say the third time’s the charm. And Stryper pulled it off in full measure. »No More Hell To Pay« definitely belongs among the cream of studio gems released in melodic rock this year. The beast has broken its chains and is thirsty for blood, as if reborn in the eighties of the last century. Fans of the band’s traditional legacy will be thrilled with what Stryper are delivering with the new album.
Lineup
Michael Sweet – vocals, guitar
Oz Fox – guitar, backing vocals
Timothy Gaines – bass guitar, backing vocals
Robert Sweet – drums
Production
Michael Sweet
Track list
1. Revelation
2. No More Hell To Pay
3. Saved By Love
4. Jesus Is Just Alright
5. The One
6. Legacy
7. Marching Into Battle
8. Te Amo
9. Sticks & Stones
10. Water Into Wine
11. Sympathy
12. Renewed.
