What started out as a Michael Sweet solo project, “Reborn”, a more modern ( I hated it) much less Stryper influenced album in 2005 that after the Stryper reunion had been confirmed that Oz Fox, Robert Sweet, and Tracie Ferrie came in to record their parts, and a Tim Gains-less “Murder By Pride” which was much better and closer to what Styper are all about musically, then an album of covers (“the Covering”), “Second Coming” is like the official confirmation of Stryper’s return.

Consisting of fourteen rerecorded classics from the first three albums, and two originals, it is evident Stryper used this album (and “The Covering”) to get back to their heavy metal roots and on track, not spiritually, but musically. The arrangements of the old songs remain the same, tuned a tad lower with Michael not singing so high, just a spruced up production with more muscle. ‘Soldiers Under Command’, ‘Makes Me Wanna Sing’, ’The Rock That Makes Me Roll’, ‘To Hell With The Devil’, ‘Free’, ‘The Way’ still nice slabs of twin guitar driven heavy metal, and ‘First Love’ is better now in this new version ‘Bleeding From Inside Out’ contains the melodic backing vocals and guitar leads Stryper are known for and ‘Blackened’ could have fit well on the underrated “Against The Law” album in the verses and chorus, solo is nicely classic 80s Stryper .

Looking forward to the forthcoming album, already titled “No More Hell to Pay”, which is supposed to be full on hard hittin metal Stryper.