Stryper is probably a band that many love to hate :) In the fall of 2003
Stryper's original members reunited to celebrate the band's 20 year anniversary with a Tour across USA.
Stryper played to over 50,000 fans at 38 shows. This album is
Stryper's first live album and "7 Weeks Live In America" was recorded during the reunion tour.
Sing Along Song proves how
Stryper master great vocals harmonies. It also makes their music a bit sugar sweet and to make up for that
Stryper are blessed with the great guitarist Oz Fox, who really plays a mean guitar. Listen to the intro to
Free - the song has a great melodic signature riff. Oz Fox's melodic paying and the twin guitar from singer and Rhythm guitarist Michael Sweet really makes
Free a great live track.
I have always been a bit torn with
Stryper. There is something awkward with their hard pumping rock, exemplified on
More Than a Man, with lyrics like "Jesus in your heart". Dunno whether it's cool or not.
Highlights include
Caught in the Middle, which is a really heavy song with impressive playing by Michael Sweet as well. Oz Fox also plays a great solo and Fox also shines on the up-tempo
Loud N Clear and The Way, where the last mentioned is totally 80's Metal with artificial harmonics -
Stryper sounds more like
Metallica that church music on this one
The concert proves that
Stryper has written some great songs.
Soldiers Under Command has a monster guitar solo and my personal favorite
To Hell With The Devil has a great into and a brilliant chorus.
Stryper sound very good on the live recording - very flawless without sounding touched up or polished.
The end is very anti climax since the concert ends with
Honestly, which introduced
Stryper to the masses. Like Michael Sweet puts it, they went from selling 150-200.000 copies of their albums to 2 million because of this song, which was their commercial breakthrough. However, I am not too fond of the ballad because of the sickening organ and even though Michael Sweet sounds amazing and hits high notes - this song just doesn't do it for me.
Same goes for the encore
Winter Wonderland. It's almost a
Spinal Tap moment on this one - normally rock bands shout something like "A
re you ready Cleveland?" with the crowd responding "YEAH". Here it is double bass drumming and "
Are you ready for Christmas, Are you ready for Christmas? - how many people here are ready for Christmas." Ha ha - the show was recorded near Christmas and this old Christmas tune is redone
Stryper style.
Sometimes you forget this is Christian metal, but
Stryper reminds everyone by closing the evening off with a closing Prayer.
All in all a solid performance and a safe buy for fans. As stated earlier I am a bit torn with this band but admit that they have written some good songs and sound like a solid live band.
Written by
Michael Tuesday, March 15, 2005
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