Album Review: Stryper – Throne Of Thorns
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
For all that Stryper’s classic output won them critical and commercial plaudits aplenty, it’s the efforts since their reformation in 2003 that catches my ear most. Their 80’s work has plenty of unchained heavy metal thunder for sure, but especially on albums like “To Hell with the Devil” and “In God we Trust” it shares space with an abundance of hard rockin’ pop metal that simply doesn’t resonate with me much. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have it’s place, evidently it does and Stryper were very good at it, but if you chuck it into the ring with a latter day career heavyweight like “No More Hell to Pay”, there’s only going to be one winner there. Modern day Stryper is leaner, heavier, hungrier. They’ve still time for a ballad or seven, but elsewhere the band are sermonising within the fantastical realms of power metal at points – take the sublime “Yahweh” from their “Fallen” release for example. And they’ve been busy too, slabs of holy steel manifesting from the heavens every few years or so (things like the Christmas album notwithstanding). And, regular as clockwork, here comes another offering from the bumblebee bedecked quartet. The pews are filled, the lectern ready, the Sabbath upon us. Do the band still have it in them to render unto God what is God’s?
Stryper’s ability to pen a chorus has always been beyond reproach, but even by that standard the band are on their A-game here. Right from the glorious self-titled opener, longstanding frontman Michael Sweet belts anthem after anthem out with such irresistible fervour that even Anton Lavey wouldn’t be able to avoid humming it to himself when he thinks no one is watching. By the time I got to the celestial thunderhead of “I’m Alright (I’m O.K)” and it’s infectious speed metal shock tactics it was becoming impossible to pretend that this modern incarnation of Stryper hadn’t won me over once more. They’re so earnest, pouring their heart and soul into each note, the passion bleeding from tracks like the colossal “Shadowbreaker” which closes the album out with a d-beat propelled heavy metal hosanna, a communion taken over a stack of Painkiller and Powerslave vinyls.
To fish yet another cliché from the tepid pond of hack writing, there’s something for everyone here. I lean towards the faster songs, but elsewhere drummer Robert Sweet sets the raw crunch of “Falling” and “Hollywood” to a neck threatening mid-paced stamp. Feel like getting in touch with your softer side? “Waiting for You” and “Ashes to Roses” have you covered. Pathologically underrated guitar duo Michael Sweet and Oz Fox are in fine form – even if admittedly a bit less incendiary than they have been in the recent past (nothing here is quite so full throttle as they go on “Transgressor” from their “The Final Battle” album for example) – screwing into place the spearheads that arm the vanguard of Stryper’s melodic onslaught. Realistically, if you like heavy metal, there isn’t really a good reason to not at least give Stryper a shot here.
It’s not all quite so euphoric though. “Alone Again” has a kind of sardonic, sneering vibe that I wasn’t particularly enamoured with. Also, assuming at this stage in their career that you were expecting Stryper to reinvent the wheel, you may come away disappointed. This album is very much in line with the palette the band have been painting with for some time now – which is hardly a bad thing of itself, but even so, when a previous album like “Against the Law” had toyed with a bunch of blues, funk and rock ‘n roll influence and latter day track “Take it to the Cross” had been borderline thrash…well, perhaps a bit more experimentation wouldn’t have gone amiss, regardless of how good Throne of Thorns wound up being solely on it’s own merits.
If I think that there is a little filler to be trimmed, Throne of Thorns is otherwise as cast iron a reaffirmation of Stryper’s place in the contemporary metal scene as could be asked for, and continues their post-reunion winning streak as though it was the easiest thing in the world. Time has yet to halt the yellow and black attack; these men are after all soldiers under command, and if you would join their ranks beside them, then Throne of Thorns presents as thunderous a welcome as could be asked for.
For all the latest news, reviews, interviews across the heavy metal spectrum follow THE RAZORS’S EDGE on facebook, twitter and instagram.
