Stryper
In God We Trust

Hey, here’s a great maraglio* album worth writing about and taking note of: from the oxymoronic genre known as Christian Metal, the title that's already quite a statement itself, the cover featuring a quote from the prophet Isaiah—who inspired the band’s name—the heavy makeup and theatrical, circus-like outfits of the four musicians (as seen on the back cover). Stryper are the epitome of the kind of brashness that people indulged in so successfully during those fateful eighties (this album is from ’88). The young Renato Zero with his star-lined cloaks is nothing in comparison to these guys.

So, all lyrics in glory of God, proclaimed while compressed guitar rhythms pour down relentlessly, a piercing tenor lead vocal, the drums even more compressed and definitely punchy. By the way: the talented drummer of this lineup liked to perform not, as per established custom, more or less at the center of the stage facing the audience, but instead on his right side, turned ninety degrees, offering the crowd the left side of his whole body, thus avoiding being half-hidden behind drums and cymbals as usually happens with drummers. In short, the group’s attraction.

I have a soft spot for this album played by young men with curly perms that would put even Mozart’s wigs to shame. Its throwaway riffs are impossible to memorize, being so conventional, and the angelic choruses fired up at full blast in the most heartfelt celebration of the Lord in heaven are overflowing and, in their (pompous) way, flawless. The frontman’s falsetto is astonishing and he’s certainly not short of breath; the lead guitar is appropriately, conventionally Van Halen-esque (with all due respect to the maestro and pioneer Eddie), with the added vice of harmonizing itself continually, stubbornly, celestially.

There’s a constant display of melody, but it’s the dull, pointless, elusive kind. It’s a useless kind of rock... there’s better even within the small world of Christian rock (Kerry Livgren for instance, or Mastedon…). The singer has lots of range (at one point in his career he even had a stint with Boston in their declining years) but squawks exaggeratedly all the time, becoming as grating as the guitars, so distorted and compressed they kill every bit of dynamics, every “breath” in the music.

Stryper’s career is divided in two parts: the first, through most of the eighties, with more than decent success and five albums released, of which this is the fourth. Then a long period of oblivion ended by the classic, inevitable reunion in the 2000s. From that point, a long rosary (…ehm) of albums, all with killer covers (just look at the last one, “When We Were Kings”: five resurrected Christs on stage!), with no restraint and loudly shouting their fanatical religiosity, widely shared in a certain disturbing and bewildering America.

Le stripes in inglese sono le strisce, così lo striper (la y al posto della i ce l’hanno messa loro, per far più figo) sarebbe quello che le crea, le realizza: credo quindi che Isaia o chi per lui si riferisse ai segni lasciati sul corpo da una frusta…

*Note: “maraglio” is left untranslated as it does not have an English equivalent and seems to be a slang/regionalism.