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Frontiers [Release date : 13.09.24]
When We Were Kings is Stryper’s 12th studio album. The line up remains Michael Sweet, Robert Sweet, Oz Fox and Perry Richardson, solid for nearly seven years now.
When we reviewed their last two albums, Even The Devil Believes (2020) and The Final Battle (2022), we noted that these might just be Stryper’s most significant recordings, where they’ve felt free to speak openly, without restraint. The Heavy Metal genre has always seemed the most suitable place to do that, and the band’s direction of travel is maintained here.
‘Raptured’ and ‘End Of Days’ are cases in point.
Sweet’s declamatory vocals predict “angels will weep at the end of this broken world”. And again, a dignified admission, “I’m raptured…I’m captured by your love”.
The songs might be dressed in melodic metal finery and bruising riffery but there is a focus to each, and both are connected by a single golden thread. How many metal genres/subgenres can say that?
The album’s trailer track, ‘Love’s Symphony’ will take you back to Stryper of old, fast forwarded to the present day. An ‘Honestly’ for today’s generation, who expect their music to be wrapped up in hard edged metal even when there’s a pop song shining through.
Sweet’s vocals are once again in great form. ‘Grateful’ and ‘When We Were Kings’ don’t need his trademark howl. He wrings maximum emotion from these two chest beating affirmations of faith and gratitude, both with memorable melodies and an imagined gospel choir, and both as good as anything Sweet has written.
Wherever we look here, the more things change and the more they stay resolutely the same. We find those always welcome constants – great songwriting, great melodies, intensity, passion and a fabulously tight production job by Sweet and stalwart, Danny Bernini.
This is “Christian Rock” for the masses, and it’s great.
The band are embarking on 40 stop tour of the USA next month, finishing just before Christmas. Good timing. ****1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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