Quik Reviews: Legions Of Doom & Stryper

Not a lot of sunshine this week.

Legions Of Doom - The Skull III

I got in trouble a few years ago when doom legend Eric Wagner died, because I wasn't exactly sensitive to the how and why of it. Since it happened during the early days of the pandemic, I think you can put the rest of the story together.

This record is made up of the pieces that would have been the next record from his band The Skull. The rest of the band, and some friends, took the in-progress scraps and fleshed them out. It's a nice sentiment, but I'm never sure if we should be applauding an end result that might not at all be what the deceased would have wanted it to sound like. Sometimes paying respect can actually be disrespectful, but since Wagner's family signed off on this project, I'm not going to suggest anything.

Without Wagner's unique voice, this record actually feel sless haunting and solemn than the work he did when alive. The vocals lack the sorrow and pathos that made Wagner stand out, and the lyrics often being uninteligible only further saddens this affair. Wagner's last words are on this record, and the singers can't even deliver them so we can hear what he had to say. I shouldn't say it's insulting, but it is.

When Wagner's voice appears on "Heaven", everything crystalizes. The others, no matter how good their intentions, are not equipped to replicate what Wagner brought to the table. I don't know if this would have been a great Skull record even if Wagner had lived, but without him it doesn't stand a chance.

Stryper - When We Were Kings

It seems to me that some people don't quite learn the right lessons. Case in point; Stryper. Since they came back, they have released album after album they describe as their 'heaviest' yet. And yes, it is true that Stryper today is heavier than Stryper in their cheesy 80s glory. That's an interesting factoid, but it obscures the main point, which is that less people care about Stryper music today than they did back then.

You can make your music as heavy as you want, but if the songs don't connect to people, it doesn't matter. Yes, I know that being on the label they are means no one outside of their old audience even knows these records exist, but they are still playing in their own feedback loop. There's a reason why the only times hard rock and metal ever became popular in the mainstream, it was when they became more melodic. That's what gets widespread acclaim.

The plus side to this album is that I haven't seen Michael Sweet bragging about writing it in a week, but the negative side is that if this one did have more time invested in it, I can't hear where. Sweet continues to produce songs with lackluster melodies, sung in his perpetually full-bore vocal. His riffing style is simplistic, which would actually be perfect if he could deliver strong hooks. He doesn't, and the bare-bones nature of every piece of the puzzle reveals how plain the picture is.

Stryper fans will enjoy this, because it sounds like modern Stryper. Everyone else is going to wish we could have the cheesy fun of the yellow-and-black days again. At least we could laugh at those.