Tag: Stryper

Album Review: Stryper – The Greatest Gift Of All (Frontiers Music s.r.l.)

By: Jesse Striewski

With Christmas just days away, it felt like as good of a time as ever to finally sit down and give the all-new Stryper album dedicated to the season, which came out roughly one month ago now, a fair try.

The Greatest Gift of All gives longtime fans of The Yellow and Black Attack what they’ve always wanted; a full album of traditional and original Christmas numbers with a rocking edge at a time when the world can surely use them.

While I’ve never been too big of a “Little Drummer Boy” fan, tracks like “Go Tell It On The Mountain” and “Joy to the World” still hold up well, and the likes of “Still The Light” and “On This Holy Night” are hard not to like here.

Admittedly I may not be the prime example of a practicing Christian by any means, but I’m trying to do better in my older years now. And with all the evil lurking out there in the world these days, it’s not such a bad thing to get a little holy now and then.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Album Review: Sunbomb – Evil and Divine (Frontiers Music s.r.l.)

By: Jesse Striewski

While neither the album cover, nor the name of this current project between L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns and Stryper frontman Michael Sweet really grabbed my attention at first, what the two have achieved here is no doubt sheer heavy metal greatness.

Opening track/single “Life” packed enough of a punch to convince me to check out the rest Evil and Divine, and it was soon clear that this was a well-thought out effort from start to finish, with Guns unleashing some of his heaviest Sabbath-inspired riffs, and Sweet belting out each and every track with full passion. Some more album highlights include the timely “World Gone Wrong,” the ballad “Been Said and Done,” and epic single “Better End.”

It’s apparent the folks at Frontiers no doubt know how to put together a winning combination of established musicians at this point and let them do their thing. However, it would’ve been slightly more interesting had Sunbomb been a true “supergroup” rounded out by a full band, instead of only having Guns and Sweet as the faces of the project. Regardless, this still works for everyone involved.

Rating: 3/5 Stars