Stryper, Cooper among overlooked albums

Stryper, ‘Reborn’
Believe it: Stryper, the ’80s metal missionaries, not only resurrected their career, they made one of the best albums of 2005. In their first new studio album in 15 years, the band that won multi-platinum fame and followers by blending angelic four-part harmonies with bone crunching riffs and searing solos (not to mention tossing little Bibles into the crowd at each concert) shows that though they once were lost, they now are found.

The album kicks off with a roar in “Open Your Eyes,” one of many songs urging listeners to turn from sin and seek salvation. But it’s done so powerfully and aggressively that even metalheads who aren’t down with the message can still mosh to the music. The title track was written as a solo track by lead singer Michael Sweet, which inspired him to seek out old bandmates, his brother Robert Sweet and guitarist Oz Fox for a reunion with new bassist Tracy Ferrie. It’s a dark, brooding but ultimately uplifting promise that anyone who believes in Jesus can have the chains of ignorance and sin broken for good.

It’s not easy for a band to sound like both Metallica and Styx on the same album, but Stryper manages to do it with the heaviness of “When Did I See You Cry?” and the airiness of “Rain.” The catchy hook and chorus of “Wait For You” is a hit single in waiting, and “10,000 Years” is actually a rocked up version of the traditional hymn “Amazing Grace” that’s guaranteed to make the church ladies keel over in the pews. The band finishes up with a remake of “In God We Trust,” the title track from their last successful album in 1988 that’s more bottom heavy and brutal here.

Gone is the band’s trademark yellow and black-striped spandex that made them look like Biblical bumblebees, and Michael Sweet’s high-pitched operatic voice doesn’t hurt as many dogs’ ears this time out. What’s left is a supremely talented band with a knack for songwriting, a flair for showmanship, and a message to sustain them, even if MTV doesn’t play their videos anymore.    —Wayne Parry

Alice Cooper, ‘Dirty Diamonds’
Since the start of the new millennium, Alice Cooper has blended ’90s nu-metal style with ’80s guitar flash in a succession of uniformly good and sometimes great albums. On “Dirty Diamonds,” however, the inventor of shock rock harkens back to his roots with an album very much in the spirit and sound of his 1971 classic “Love it To Death.” The intentionally stripped-down arrangements and minimalist guitar solos on “Woman Of Mass Distraction” and “Steal That Car” could have come from “Be My Lover” or “Is It My Body.”

One of rock’s original drag queens, Cooper remains one of the funniest lyricists in rock, particularly on “The Saga of Jesse Jane.” It’s a country/western ballad about a transvestite trucker who stops his rig at a McDonalds in Texas, and saunters inside to buy a happy meal dressed in his sister’s wedding gown, with predictably disastrous results: “Jesse Jane/Are you insane?/Or are you just a normal guy/Who dresses like a butterfly?”

The title track lifts the classic riff from Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” but adds a tinny horn section to give it a James Bond-theme feel.

On “Run Down The Devil,” there’s someone new under his wheels, set to a bottom-heavy backbeat reminiscent of Run DMC’s crossover “King Of Rock.” And a bonus track pairs The Coop with rapper Xzibit on “Stand.”    —Wayne Parry

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