STRYPER NEW ALBUM - Coming out in September

More thoughts:
Make Love Great Again could be a major social anthem if metal was a more popular genre.  Even then, if marketed properly it could be a influential within the right circles.

The least excellent song is Middle Finger Messiah.  No, it's not controversial (it's not the title track to GDE), but it doesn't catch me.  The chorus is catchy but meaningless without the context of the verses.

It's one we will look back as a sign of the times.  The phrase "make ____ great again" and the masks the band are wearing will always conjure up memories of this time in history.  Good for Stryper for being socially relevant.

Check out the Blabbermouth comment section for their album review that blasted Stryper's faith.  It's great to see metal fans overwhelmingly disapprove of attacking a band for their beliefs.

Temple of Blood wrote:Check out the Blabbermouth comment section for their album review that blasted Stryper's faith.  It's great to see metal fans overwhelmingly disapprove of attacking a band for their beliefs.

Except the way that most of them are attacking the guy and cursing him out. Especially when they are addressing some one about matters of faith.

Andreas89 wrote:Although I'm not a Stryper fan, NMHTP is one of my favourite christian metal albums, and one of my personal highlights of last decade in general. Because of that I was a bit too careless and bought Fallen as soon as I could. Turned out to be a hit or miss album. The singles of GDE couldn't convince me, so I didn't bother with that one.

Are you me!?

I'm not really an actual fan either, but I love a lot of their earlier stuff. I love To Hell with the Devil and In God We Trust.

But I went through the new albums pretty much exactly the same way you did. I really love NMHTP, I was blown away when it first came out. Maybe only one or two weaker moments but even those were quite ok. One of the strongest Christian metal albums ever. And just like you I immediately got Fallen when it came out. Yahweh was extremely promising, but the rest of the album was more a disappointment than a great followup album. Yahweh was great and then there were a few tracks near the end that were great, but the rest was very mediocre. And I chose to skip GDE for pretty much the same reasons as you (although I actually liked the chorus of Take It to the Cross, lol). And even later when I listened to the full album on Youtube, I think there was only one or two tracks worth listening.

I guess I'll check the new album out at some point though.

I have finally gotten to listen to it all the way through.  This is solid listen, but nothing is grabbing me on the first pass like the album "Fallen" did.  That is pretty much the best thing Stryper ever did with "To Hell With The Devil" running a very close second for me.  It will take a couple more listens to see what stands out the most.

I have to agree with FoJ on wondering if Oz played any solos on this at all.  None of the solos sound like his tone which was always more tinny than Michael's.

The test for me with this album and any other, in terms of true greatness, is that eventually every song "has its day." If I slowly start having each and every song grow and become a favorite then it's something special. It's a good sign when I didn't like the title track and now it's all I want to listen to. If that keeps happening with each song then I know I have something personally special. Fallen was actually as close as I came with the last few, though each of the last 4 have been that way to some degree.

bodachi wrote:

BaleMaster wrote:...The credits and inner sleeve photos are teh shibby! 

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope mine are okay when it arrives.

 

I thought shibby was a good thing?

This is a great album and I wasn't expecting this as the last 2 we're just OK. This new one grabbed me right off the bat and I can't stop listening to it. "Make love great again," "Divider," "For God & Rock and Roll." are stand outs so far, but every song is really really good. I never expected this album to be that good, but it is.

Bought4Life wrote:

bodachi wrote:

BaleMaster wrote:...The credits and inner sleeve photos are teh shibby! 

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope mine are okay when it arrives.

 

I thought shibby was a good thing?

It is.  Bodachi mistranslated.  

This one might be a grower. First couple songs listened to were kind of meh but listening to more and there's some good stuff with Invitation Only and How to Fly being very good songs.

I am on the first listening right now.

I am truly impressed with some songs and mostly with some solos. Even the Devil Believes is great and it has a great solo.

But for the other songs, I felt it is more of the same. Don't get me wrong, I think Michael is impressively creative, mostly because he writes himself all the Stryper songs.

But you know, Stryper is going to release a new album, someone will say it is their best to date, and so on...

BaleMaster wrote:

Bought4Life wrote:

bodachi wrote:

BaleMaster wrote:...The credits and inner sleeve photos are teh shibby! 

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope mine are okay when it arrives.

 

I thought shibby was a good thing?

It is.  Bodachi mistranslated.  

"Mistranslated"? Could be, I am a native English speaker. Not sure what the heck "teh shibby" is, but it sounds less than ideal.

Lighten up, Francis.  "Teh shibby"= 

alldatndensum wrote:We're playing Bingo?  Man, I gotta go get grandma!  

I thought she got ran over by a reindeer? 

Not a bad one for Stryper. They definitely played it safe theres no power metalish leanings no thrash cords just good safe keep the Quite Riot Skid Row fans happy melodic metal. For the record Temple Of Blood kicks ass

I'm still waiting to receive my red vinyl and CD from band camp but I heard all of the album from you tuve the listening party Tuesday evening. I've bene a fan od Stryper since 1985 during the Soldiers era and every album always 1 or 2 songs that I don't like or is a filler (Together Forever, It's Up 2 U, Come to the Everlife, Eclipse of the Sun, Mercy Over Blame, etc). 

The last 4 albums including Even the Devil Believes are quite good. The new album is slightly better than the previous 3. I wasn't a fan of How to Fly at first but its growing on me and it has a cathy groove. It reminds me of a Million Pieces by The Newsboys. The ballad is ok, not great. I'm not an of Middle Figner Messiah. It's not because of the title but the muisc. I think this may grow on me. It kind of reminds me of The Reign form IGWT and The Devil Doesn't Live Here from the last album. 

Liking 9 out of 11 songs is not bad. That's an 8.1/10. as a minor thing is NMHTP and Fallen had 12 songs  where they each included a cover. The last 2 had 11. It would be cool if there were covers on the last 2 albums to round them out to 12 songs for each album.

I got the new album. I like it! 

It’s the best of the recent stuff!

TZ75 wrote:I got the new album. I like it! 

It’s the best of the recent stuff!

I agree wholeheartedly! I do like their last four or five albums but this one is their best of those. Not a bad song on here! My favorite song right now is “How To Fly”....I love the lyrics and the vibe.

Central Illinois loves Stryper, so my friends all got together and decided to talk about the new album.

I love the album, but I do like some of the songs from Fallen and NMHTP better than anything on this one. However, there are songs on both of those releases that I don't care for too much, while ETDB is a more even experience.

Well, that was a bummer.

The album was off to a pretty good start but a few songs in I just got bored. I'm beginning to think that No More Hell to Pay was an exception. Man I love that album...

I proudly shared my copy with my coworker. He was blown away too.