Stryper-The Covering

Big3 Records 2011


I've sat on this review now for a few weeks. Let's just say Stryper and I have a love/hate relationship and leave it at that. While cover albums are nothing new (one of my favorite discs is the original Garage Day's EP by Metallica) for a Christian band to record covers from Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden does raise some interesting questions. We'll save those for another time and get to the heart of the matter. Fact is for me this has been the strongest release Stryper has ever done. Yes, it is all covers with the exception of "God". It doesn't change the fact that I really enjoyed their covers of "Carry On My Wayward Son", "Shout It Out Load" and "Lights Out". "Breaking The Law" would be a great song if I didn't have the image of yellow and black in my head. "Over The Mountain" and "The Trooper" have charm as does "On Fire". "Immigrant Song" was the one cover I didn't get into. As I'm not a huge Led Zeppelin fan to begin with the cover does little for me. It does seem odd to me that a cover album would be my favorite Stryper disc to date. Is it technically a "Stryper" album? No. It is a covers collection. But the band choose some good tunes to cover and the album is fun. It might end up causing the band more harm than good in the long run considering the song choices. It remains to be seen if their Christian fans will embrace the group playing secular songs. It's going to be hard singing "The Hell With The Devil" when you've danced with the group responsible for "The Number Of The Beast".