Stryper - God Damn Evil

Undergoing a bit of a power metal renaissance in 2013 with No More Hell to Pay, and expounding on it with 2015’s Fallen, Stryper certainly showed themselves still impressively capable musically, though perhaps not the most aware contextually. Still, it’s hard to deny the longevity they’ve had, and the lasting strength and youthful timbre Michael Sweet’s voice has sustained into his fifties. And though they’ll always have naysayers due to their image, their faith, their publicity, or their old-ass style, Stryper have powered through it better than most bands entering the stages of life they’ve entered.

God Damn Evil continues their well-equipped and slowly adjusting foray into power metal, but not without its hiccups.

Despite being against the eighth of the ten commandments, the album’s first song “Take It to the Cross” seems to quite dangerously steal from the primary riff of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave”, just a bit too noticeably to be comfortable with. But it’s that rapid fire titular vocal refrain that really tanks the song. Taking a more modern speed metal twist, it’s just an awkward style for Stryper, and quite apparently so.

Fortunately, the album only gets better from there, and the first half of what’s left afterward is mostly a pretty vibrant statement of Stryper’s applaudable late-career power. “Sorry”, thankfully, begins to redeem the awful introductory track with a big, glamorously vibrato-laden chorus more up Stryper’s alley.

The third track, “Lost”, channels a very modern and Dragonforce-esque brand of power metal, pretty well actually, capturing the inspirational vibe pretty accurately. The subsequent title track shoots for arena rock glory for God but ends up being quite a musical cornfield. Not that Stryper’s music hasn’t benefited from some overblown theatrics, they’ve always flown close to the sun in terms of campiness, and this is the song that melted the wax of their wings in this case.

“You Don’t Even Know Me” and “The Valley” both pick back up the uplifting power metal vibes with some sweet anthemic guitar leads underlying the major parts of the songs and a tasty solo seasoning the latter track.

The latter half of the album sees a significant drop-off, unfortunately, by way of old habits. Building on a dirty hard rock riff, “Sea of Thieves” and the cheesy rock worship of “Beautiful” find Stryper drifting back into their 1980’s mold a bit, and not in the most exciting ways. Both are forgettable songs that sound like they would be lucky to be B-sides back then. “Can’t Live Without Your Love” is the closest thing to a ballad on here, and despite a few seconds of soulful guitar soloing, it sounds more overly sentimental than it does raw and open about the band’s love for God as the title implies. “Own Up” delivers another dose of crunchy rock riffage, but it’s not particularly well-written around its main motif.

The closing track thankfully ends the album on a strong note with an operatic return to the form of power metal for which the band has found themselves quite a knack.

With a pretty half-and-half divide of thrillers and lulls, God Damn Evilshows where Stryper’s strengths in this latter act of their career lie. They take full advantage of their sustained ability in the more power metal driven songs on the album, but they squander their efforts trying to relive the past in the retro-glam filler on the latter half of the album. What this interestingly suggests is that Styper have the full potential to pull off a well-executed later career phase much like Accept was able to, in power metal. It’s weird, but if they turned their focus to tailoring their writing to the bombastic expressiveness of power metal, with their experience and lasting talent, I could see them occupying the same niche younger bands like Dragonforce do. This would require them to step outside the safety that catering to their aging fanbase (who wish for more music like the good ol’ days) has provided, and unfortunately, too much of this album gives light of an unwillingness to go all the way and risk leaving their comfort zone.