The Details: The Soldiers Under God’s Command are back in the New York Groove and will be bringing their great live sound to the hot new Stage 48 venue on the West Side of town. It’s always great to have the attack of the yellow and black keeping us fans on a positive Metal path and not only are they still celebrating their revisit to some classics with “Second Coming” but they are also delivering the latest to be greatest stuff from their recent “No More Hell To Pay” album. Surely this is going to be a fun night of music. Now, add to this coolness the absolute levels of awesome in the fact that the Marketing Team behind Stage 48 who have asked PiercingMetal to hold this contest and put some people in the room for free. This excites me almost as much as the fact that the band still possesses all original members. Read more on how to participate. Continue reading Win To See Stryper @ Stage 48 On 1/4/2014→
The Details: The Soldiers Under God’s Command are back in the New York Groove and will be bringing their great live sound to the venerated B.B. King Blues Club once more. It’s always great to have the attack of the yellow and black keep us fans on a positive Metal path and not only is the band supporting their brand new “Second Coming” album, but they will be having White Lion’s own Mike Tramp as their special guest opener. Surely this is going to be a fun night of music. Now, add to this coolness the absolute levels of awesome of the B.B. King Blues Club powers that be who asked PiercingMetal to hold this contest and put some people in the room for free. This excites me almost as much as the fact that the band possesses all original members. Read more on how to participate. Continue reading Win To See Stryper In NYC On 7/13/2013→
Artist: Mortification Title: “Conquer The World” Label: Metal Mind Productions Release Date: 5/13/2008 Genre: Christian Metal Rating: 3/5
Thrash Metal riffs and Death Metal growling vocals are not always the first aspects that come to mind in a Christian Metal band but such was indeed the case when it came to the band Mortification from Australia. The DVD “Conquer The World” is a reissue of their original VHS release from 2002 that documented the bands first ever world tour and should be something that their most ardent of fans will eat up. The band was formed by bassist/singer Steve Rowe back in 1990 and over the years would release some twenty albums and become innovators in the Christian Metal genre based on the different manner in which they delivered their music and the message behind it. Clearly the band didn’t approach this in the same fashion as Stryper for where they would have high-pitched screams all over the place. Mortification instead chose a far darker and much more primal sound to their Metal style and as result was able to be considered the most Extreme Christian Metal band in music history. The video is good but not great as much of the footage is shot in an amateur fashion but then again based on its time of original release and when the clips actually originated that is to be expected. Sometimes the camera work is dizzying based on the sudden pans to the audience and then back to the band. When one watches this they realize just how far the medium has come in terms of documenting live music. For the most part the footage is live shots of the band in performance and while it’s nice to see we do not always get treated to the full songs. Continue reading “Conquer The World” by Mortification→
Artist: Stryper Title: “Greatest Hits: Live In Puerto Rico” Label: MVD Entertainment Release Date: 4/24/2007 Genre: Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Rating: 4/5
Let’s all raise a hearty “Hails and Hosanna” for those Metal Messengers of the Most High for they have returned and released their first full concert DVD in the bands history. I know some of you Old Schoolers are saying that back in the day a live concert from Japan was released but that has never seen the light of DVD and is long out of print on VHS as well. Younger fans are saying “what’s a VHS” but I digress. This concert was filmed in Puerto Rico back in March of 2004 and it finds a reunited lineup of Stryper performing the greatest hits from their albums in front of a very enthusiastic and appreciative crowd. During the “Hair Metal” years of the eighties Stryper was a band that ruled the video networks of MTV and were immediately recognizable from both their positive Christian message as well as their yellow and black spandex outfits. Today Stryper has abandoned the spandex costumes but the message and the music remains strong and sounds better than ever before. The DVD is a great way to catch up on these guys and what they are capable of musically and this is especially true if you only know of songs like “Honestly” or “Calling On You”. There is certainly a lot more to absorb with this performance and you will soon find that in the concert setting that this is a band that sounds really, really good. I am confident that you will be impressed with just how good as a matter of fact. The show in PR was led up to with the band reuniting around their CD Best Of compilation “7: The Best Of Stryper”; it was a disc that found all tracks remastered and sounding very upfront as opposed to the original mixes. Continue reading “Greatest Hits: Live In Puerto Rico” by Stryper→
It’s not normal that I head out to see a band once again only a few days after catching them in my immediate vicinity but the chance came up for me to have a ticket for the bands performance that was happening on Long Island that night so I took my friend up on the offer of attending. We started the trek at Penn Station where I grabbed a giant hot pretzel and it was quickly onto the train and off to Wantaugh, NY to the club called Mulcahy’s. By my recollection I had only been here once before and that was for Michael Schenker Group but I did love the place. They have a spacious venue and a great PA system. There is also a little bit more roomy in terms of the stage so the bands can move around a little more. Once the trek out to the venue was completed, and to be honest it is a long ride from NYC, we arrived just in time for what we expected to be another early show. The NYC appearance was at 8:00 with no openers but tonight we would find two opening bands and one was getting ready to start. The band Garlic was interesting and they combined an almost Cheap Trick style with some Beatles harmonies. I found it fun to realize that bassist Randy Gregg who had just completed tours with Thin Lizzy and Angel was among the lineup. Stryper would come up shortly after this bands set and while the audience was nice to Garlic, you just knew who they were here for. There were Stryper jacket paintings and shirts everywhere. I even saw a few people who I had spoken to only days before in the Big Apple and this made sense since they said how Stryper was their favorite band of them all. Continue reading Stryper @ Mulcahy’s (9/28/2005)→
