When I was a kid in the late 80s, when heavy metal was still scary to me and to most of the world, I wore out a cassette of Stryper’s Soldiers Under Command. That album was loud, with shreddy guitars and big melodies (and equally big hair); it was metal, but apparently enjoying it wouldn’t damn me to eternity in a lake of fire. I played it so much that my cousin, who often stayed with us for months in the summer, offered to buy it from me solely so that he could break it. But I wouldn’t sell. He complained and complained, and eventually he hid the tape, but I found it again, and then he complained some more…
As I grew up, obviously I figured out that listening to Morbid Angel wouldn’t hurt me any (at least not until they got to the I’s). So I moved on from Stryper not long after the Jesus bees took off the stripes, took out the overt references to faith in favor of a more secular hair metal, and then took a subsequent hiatus after the departure of vocalist / guitarist Michael Sweet. With that, I figured that my brief foray into Christian metal fandom was all but over – and I was totally fine with that, since most of it is awful – but here I am, listening to a new Stryper album in 2015.
And damned if it isn’t pretty loud, with shreddy guitars and big melodies, and damned if it isn’t also pretty good…
Of course, I had a little bit of warning: I hadn’t been keeping up with Stryper’s post-millennium reunion until 2013’s No More Hell To Pay, but that one was surprisingly solid. The band had once again found the classic metal fire that bolstered their heavy hymns back in the day, even going so far as to finally record one of their Sunset Strip-era Roxx Regime tunes from thirty years previous.
Fallen follows No More Hell’s lead, all metal riff and giant chorus, a surprisingly aggressive take on positively lily-white loudness. Sure, like all Stryper, your enjoyment of it depends upon your ability to stomach its overtly devout themes. I’m no religious man, and there are times on Fallen when the Jesusosity gets a bit much, but when Fallen rocks, it rocks, and rocking is far more holy to me than any Christian anything.
So, if Fallen rocks when it rocks, then we should be thankful that it rocks often. Opening track “Yahweh” is stellar, all choir-vocal chorus and pedal-point Oz Fox riff. And there’s Sweet soaring atop it all, singing a tale of Jesus’ death on Golgotha in full-throated hard rock glory. I won’t claim serious expertise in Stryper-ness, but “Yahweh” is easily one of the best Stryper tunes I’ve heard, one of their most seriously metallic and one of their flat-out ballsiest tunes. Even the subject matter is darker, concerning the crucifixion of Jesus, instead of just praising his name and such. (Can I say a song about Jesus is “ballsy”? Crap, here I am worried about the lake of fire again…)
The title track is another rocker, maybe not as good as “Yahweh,” but not far behind, and equally dark – this one’s about Lucifer, the fallen angel, he who was cast out of heaven for rebelling against God. And if that’s not fodder for a metal song, then what is, really? (But of course, it’s been fodder for hundreds…) From there, Fallen continues to rock: Though the lyrical matter on “Big Screen Lies” gets a bit whiny – decrying the allegedly negative portrayal of Christians in the media – there’s redemption in the riff, at least.
Still, as good as the original songs are, the centerpiece here is actually a cover, this time a surprising choice, although a somewhat obvious one if you think about it: Black Sabbath’s “After Forever.” Stryper released a take on Sabbath’s “Heaven And Hell” on their all-covers album a few years ago, and then as now, it turns out that they’re pretty good at the Sabbath tracks. “After Forever” fits perfectly, nicely done, a right hook from left field that works brilliantly, even its lyrical themes fitting snugly alongside the rest of the record.
But not all is always heavenly: Stryper has always had a penchant for sabotaging their metal with some horrific ballad – and sometimes, like in the case of 1987’s “Honestly,” it’s worked for them, commercially, and inexplicably, since that song is just flat-out awful. Still, Fallen only falls from its rocking grace once, in the case of the vaguely country-ish “All Over Again.” That one’s a total stinker, from top to bottom, but at least it’s not insanely schmaltzy, laden with keyboard chimes and strings. That’s a small consolation, but when we’re talking Stryper ballads, it’s a serious improvement.
That one stumble aside, throughout Fallen, Stryper plays with an energy that belies their age and family-friendly direction – the tandem of Fox and Sweet can shred when the time comes, for sure. But really, as good as the riffs often are, and as great as the band plays, when it all comes down, Fallen lives and dies by Michael Sweet’s performance. He’s the predominant songwriter, the vocalist and occasional lead guitarist, but mostly, he’s the one that has to sell the Jesusified lyrical themes with enough grit and sincerity to make Fallen (and thus Stryper) not some laughable band that, to paraphrase Hank Hill, “doesn’t make Jesus cooler, but instead makes rock ‘n’ roll worse.” And in that task, Sweet comes through – he’s got conviction to go with his huge vocal range. There’s a reason that Stryper is one of the few Christian bands to cross over into the real world, and though they fell well out of favor thereafter alongside their big-haired brethren, they’re still the biggest name in Christian metal because they’re better at it than most.
I said the same about No More Hell To Pay (and I was right then, and I am now) – this album is Stryper’s best since To Hell With The Devil, perhaps perpetually their (heaven or) high-water mark. Fallen is a surprisingly blistering rocker from a band that shouldn’t have ever really rocked, but still rocks, and still rocks well.
And if you need a second opinion, I asked him and my cousin refuses to even listen to it, so that’s just further proof that it’s good…
