Past installments of my Metal Meltdowns series have focused more on negative departures, but this one is a little different – at least for me.
Stryper made their name as the first Christian metal band (or at least the first to rise to popularity) and spent the 1980s dressed like bumblebees, tossing Bibles into the crowd and telling us they were soldiers under God’s command and how we should say “To Hell with the Devil.”
Then, 1990 rolls around, and they give fans a shock with Against the Law.
Gone was the yellow-and-black color scheme, replaced with a darker blue and black. The familiar striped band logo with the Isaiah 53:5 Bible verse was also missing, replaced by a simple oval with the band name in plain type in the center. But those were minor changes compared to what was actually on the album.
Against the Law marked a decided shift in Stryper’s music. The riffs and grooves featured on this album were gritty and nasty, eschewing the angelic metal of their previous outings in favor of funk and blues rock influences. The vocals from Michael Sweet were less choir boy and a little rougher around the edges, and the lyrics, for the most part, were no longer overtly religious.
The title track, my favorite from the record, announced the change right out of the gate with a dirty groove and the jarring line “I don’t live for you, ‘cause I’m against your law.” It sent some Christian fans of Stryper into a tizzy, many condemning them for turning their backs on God.
The band members themselves have said the shift was a statement, a response to Christian protests of their music. And, yes, for those who didn’t grow up in the 1980s amid the ridiculous fear of heavy metal, that was a real thing – people carrying crosses, handing out pamphlets and getting into shouting matches with concertgoers in front of the venue. And, at least where I’m from, it was not just at rock concerts, but everywhere. I had a math teacher in high school who was very devout and took every opportunity to ridicule and chastise metal fans in her classes – particularly fans of Stryper, who “certainly didn’t sound like Christians.”
So, the middle finger aspect of this album definitely appealed to me, but it was the new sound that drew me in. One of the things that I didn’t like about Stryper prior to this was that choir-like feel of their music. It was too squeaky-clean, too “pretty” for metal. Against the Law didn’t have that problem.
Guitarist Oz Fox, always a riff-master, laid down some of his best on this album. The main riff of the title track sounds like something that Nuno Bettencourt might have put on Extreme’s Pornograffitti album of the same year. He finds another great groove on “Rock the People,” despite some rather cliché lyrics about the rock ‘n’ roll dream, and he brings a gnarly metal riff on “Caught in the Middle.”
The band also wasn’t afraid to show its more secular influences here. There’s definitely a strong Kiss feel to the chorus of “Two-Time Woman,” and “Not that Kind of Guy” wouldn’t be out of place on an early Van Halen album (except lyrically, of course.)
But the centerpiece of this album is not a Stryper song at all. Instead, it’s their smoking cover of Earth Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star.” The band recruited a pre-“American Idol” Randy Jackson to lay down a monster bass line that locked perfectly with drummer Robert Sweet, and the rest of the band played it to the hilt. Michael Sweet cuts loose with one of his best vocal performances ever, in my mind. It’s, pardon the bad pun, a shining moment in Stryper’s catalog.
The cover also underlines something that a lot of Christian fans missed at the time. Yes, there was only one song that sounded like previous Stryper – the blazing album closer “Rock the Hell Out of You” – but almost every tune here had some kind of positive message. Many pointed to the lyrics of “Against the Law” or songs about a two-timing woman or the 1980s hard rock staples of sports cars and scantily-clad (although far more clad than most other bands) women in the video for “Shining Star.” But I can guarantee you that Michael Sweet was the only hard rock vocalist of the time singing, “I’m not that kind of guy,” about being propositioned. The same messages were still there, they were just delivered in a more subtle way.
Was it an attempt by the band to break through into the secular music world? Possibly. If so, it failed. Stryper broke up after Against the Law, and it would be almost a decade before they reunited, with the yellow-and-black and in-your-face Christian lyrics back in place – though they still tweak their more devout fans occasionally by covering bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. For the most part, I think fans are over it and more comfortable about that side of the band now.
Most fans will disagree, but for me, Against the Law remains Stryper’s best album. It doesn’t feel contrived as some of their other records do. It’s a genuine snapshot of where the group was at the time and the general mood of a contentious era between Christianity and rock ‘n’ roll.
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