Review: Stryper’s ‘Even the Devil Believes' is heavenly good
Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 5 months AGO
Stryper, “Even the Devil Believes” (Frontiers)
Even the devil, long reputed in some circles to be in league with rock ‘n’ roll, must believe by now that Stryper could well be God’s favorite band. The Christian heavy metal quartet is still slamming it so hard, fast and loud nearly 40 years later that they may have friends in the highest places.
Stryper came of age in the big melody-bigger hair ’80s, epitomizing the decade’s blend of harmony and hardness. It’s a sound they have led the way keeping alive; their twin guitar solos remain instantly identifiable, and singer Michael Sweet hasn’t lost anything off his vocal fastball.
The band's new album, “Even the Devil Believes,” kicks off with a roar in “Blood from Above,” and it sets a breakneck pace right through the equally accelerated closer “Middle Finger Messiah,” a song about how many people turn their back on Jesus.
Sweet insists the provocatively titled “Make Love Great Again” isn’t a swipe at President Donald Trump, but rather a call to unite and embrace goodness and light — even though one of its verses speaks of “a culture that’s building walls.” They record, you decide.
“This I Pray” is Stryper’s own “Blaze of Glory,” in the same vein as the Bon Jovi classic, where the singer begs God for one more day of a life he hopes to turn around. And “Divider” could be the best song that Judas Priest never wrote.
ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hong Kong police arrest 4 from university student union
HONG KONG (AP) — Four members of a Hong Kong university student union were arrested Wednesday for allegedly advocating terrorism by paying tribute to a person who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself, police said.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.