Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 10/21/2022
Production: Michael Sweet
Album length: 46.30 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.0/10
Stryper are legends of ‘white metal’, the standard-bearers of so-called Christian metal, if you will, which blossomed in the eighties, especially once albums by certain sinful acts started getting slapped with a ‘parental advisory’ sticker (the late Frank Zappa would have plenty to say about that). That’s when some sufficiently crafty musicians figured out they could serve their metal to the masses by setting their Bible-inspired lyrics to music. Keep in mind that the cradle of all this ‘quasi-moralizing maneuvering’ was (you guessed it) the USA. Luckily, the boom of Christian metal beyond the ‘Atlantic pond’ didn’t bring any major upheavals of similar adaptation elsewhere in the world. Riding the wave of commercial success (exclusively on US soil), Stryper have sold over 10 million studio albums to this day. Whether they believe in the Bible or not doesn’t matter, even though Michael Sweet, if he were reading this, would smack me with some ‘bricklayer’s’ wallop right away. What counts is that this kind of packaging sells among the ‘narrow-minded Americans’. So let’s fast-forward 40 years and check out the shape Michael Sweet and his Stryper brotherhood are in for 2022. He’s still a truly incredible musician. Between solo albums and involvement in other musical projects, he keeps the creative spark high and the freshness flowing for regular Stryper albums too. It’s worth stressing here that the run of albums from the band’s last decade is truly top-notch. Sweet and the crew aren’t letting up one bit.
»The Final Battle« is also superbly metal-bristling, yet at the same time incredibly intense musically. Greedy. Insightful. Penetrating. It grabs you under the skin from the very first spin. That goes for pretty much every post-millennium album by the band. Vocally, Michael Sweet is inexhaustible! The man, who turned 59 this year, hits an exceptional vocal range even in 2022, with the band releasing its 12th (proper) studio album in total. On top of that instantly recognizable vocal charisma, which is one of the main trademarks of the band’s character and work.
The anthemic melodies all deliver theatrical bombast, one after another. Epically pompous drama theater, if you like. It’s an interesting blend of bristling metal phrasing and ultra-catchy musicality, and in a burst of high reconciliation it works damn well on the latest album too. »The Final Battle« lives up to absolutely every expectation of all the old and loyal followers of the band. Bizarrely put, for quite some time now Stryper have worked as if Queen wanted to sound like Judas Priest, or vice versa. The choir harmonies once again skillfully dress up the chorus melodies, building a greedy, pomp-heavy atmosphere. The middle-eight passages are slick mood swerves that bring extra dynamics into the compositions. They’re infused with a fresh, killer combination of guitar soloing by Michael Sweet and Oz Fox. »The Final Battle«. After the opening four marches, on which the album takes off on giant wings of Christian-white metal pomp, Stryper keep the hunger going extremely effectively in the rhythmically calmer Near too. It boasts one of the most successful chorus melodies, plus cleverly slipped-in arrangement touches typical of the aesthetics of eighties pop music. Killer!
Compared to its predecessor »Even The Devil Believes« (2020), which in terms of expressive production sits in the top league of sharpness for Stryper, the new album »The Final Battle« is musically more intensified. Despite the unexpected strutting of metal phrases, it comes across as ‘softer’ as a whole. Let’s say more ‘ear-friendly’. Thanks to a higher dose of musical optimization, which once again has no equal. In this respect Sweet remains a subtle genius of arranging compositions. A seasoned fox.
Creative diversity between the songs is back on this album too. Eleven thoroughly polished tracks prove that it’s simply hard for anything to slip past Stryper. Picking highlights is tough. The choruses steal the spotlight from one another. After the phenomenal Near finishes, the seductive chorus of the next one, Out, Up & In, takes over, followed by the classically cut, speedy march Rise To The Call. The latter is a typical Stryper stampede, one the band has successfully tried out many times in its career, and once again, skillfully repackaged, it serves it up to its followers on the new album. Interestingly, the next track, The Way, The Truth, The Life, uses a basically similar motif structure to Rise To The Call before it, but its rhythmic and arrangement packaging is a bit different, and it skillfully pulls the album out of any feeling of repetitiveness, with another dynamic swerve into an excellent chorus.
To wrap up. The new Stryper album is (as expected) yet another superb achievement in the career of the creatively inexhaustible defiance of chieftain Michael Sweet and his troops. It will more than satisfy the wishes of the faithful. It will definitely win over a few new followers too, ones drawn to the perfect combination of metal bristle and the sonic bombast of an ultra-catchy musical aesthetic. »The Final Battle« certainly doesn’t fail on that front, and that’s the very essence the band primarily wanted to put front and center while creating the new album in the studio. As always. Mission accomplished, once again!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Transgressor
2. See No Evil, Hear No Evil
3. Same Old Story
4. Heart & Soul
5. Near
6. Out, Up & In
7. Rise To The Call
8. The Way, The Truth, The Life
9. No Rest For The Wicked
10. Til Death Do Us Part
11. Ashes To Ashes
Lineup:
Michael Sweet – vocals, guitar
Oz Fox – guitar
Perry Richardson – bass guitar
Robert Sweet – drums
