Lesser of two evils

The Lesser of two evils for this month is between two LA based bands who started up in the mid 1980's. So we have .....

Keel-The right to rock


Versus

Stryper-The Yellow and black attack


So it's Keel's 1985 sophomore album versus Stryper's 1984 debut. One of these was better than I thought and one was very hard for me make it all the way through because of how bad it was. So here we go.

Singer
This category is a problem for both bands. Ron Keel can sing at times, but tries way too hard to overcompensate at other times. he puts in off pitch screams at odd moments that add nothing. He also has a deeper voice that sounds very put-on, a bit like a teenager in his room trying to sing like Gene Simmons. Michael Sweet can sing sort of, but my biggest problem with him is that he is just not a hard rock/metal singer. He just doesn't have enough behind his voice for it to work. On some of the sappy songs he just sounds like a 14 year old girl.
Point to Keel

Guitarist
The guitarists for Keel were Bryan Jay and Marc Ferrari and they have a few sparks, but largely everything is just very routine. Way too often there is just not much behind their rhythms. Oz Fox of Stryper has some moments where he routine as well, but more than half of the time he is solid enough and his solos are tight sharp. I was actually surprised by how heavy some of Fox's guitar parts were at times.
Point to Stryper

Rhythm section
Stryper bassist Tim Gaines is okay as is Kenny Chaisson of Keel. The real difference is in the drummers. Dwain Miller of Keel is very much in the background and barely noticeable. Stryper's Robert Sweet on the other hand mixes up some solid beats and has a big, thick sound to his playing.
Point to Stryper

Originality/production
The production of Keel's album is okay, but the production on Stryper is a bit murky. However, Keel have very little originality. I am still surprised that they got the push they did back then because there is very little special here. Stryper's slower songs struggle badly, but their more rock songs were sort of fresh for the time. It's a shame they didn't maintain more of that when they got more popular.
Point to Stryper

Who rocks more?
Stryper's sappy songs are ridiculously sappy. Still there are not that many of them and most of their rock songs are well arranged and I even listened to some of them twice. Stryper's rock songs (6 out of 8 tracks) were not boring and moved along fairly well. On the other hand I struggled mightily at times to make it through The right to rock. It was just surprisingly lame at times.
Point to Stryper

A bit of a blow-out as Stryper ran all over Keel to a tune of 4-1. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words so the guys in Keel just got blown out by these guys.