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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Album Review: Stryper - To Hell With the Devil (1986)

Christian heavy metal, you say? Inherently antithetical, you may add? Bah, what tripe. The latter, I mean, of course. OK, 95% of all heavy metal deals with dark subjects, most notably anti-Christian themes, and of course, as bands like Slayer and Venom will testify, Satan worship. But even Christianity has ironically made its mark on this controversial genre, and in the case of Stryper, as an evangelism tool. 1986's To Hell With the Devil is a classic example of such a radical method. It sounds like a convincing metal album too; if the mainstream metal lovers can get hooked on numbers like the title track, "Free" and "Honestly", then they must've been doing something right. The bottom line - not a bad album at all, and FYI, the devil does not look like Mr Tumnus - in fact, he makes whoever is regarded as the 'sexiest' man in the world look like me with no shirt on. Shudder. B+


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