Various Artists
Sweet Family Music: A Tribute to Stryper
Reviewed by Chris Well
Some people are going to be shocked by Sweet Family Music: A Tribute To Stryper. This is an alternative album. It makes sense, though, when you think about it; when Stryper was current, the band competed with some of the mainstream's biggest acts ... that's the style of music people were listening to. Consequently, the best way to make "tribute" is to make these current again. Sweet Family Music certainly features some of the most current Christian rock bands, including Grammatrain, Joe Christmas and Morella's Forest. Some highlights: Aleixa turns in an extremely tasty pop/industrial take on "Makes Me Wanna Sing"; Steve Hindalong (of The Choir) turns in an ironic, acoustic version of "To Hell With The Devil"; and Cricket and Combat Chuck both make some very odd medleys in very hip fashion. However, the album stumbles a bit with Havalina Rail Co. (Cajun lounge-a-billy) and spoken word artist Ralph Melish (with noisy backup from Fluffy); these "novelty" schticks get old quick. By today's songwriting standards, there are no brilliant, misunderstood gems from the Stryper vault -- and the modern rock arrangements sometimes make this more apparent (to be fair, you hardly expect Poison to make any grand political statements, either). But with some 18 tracks from a variety of cool artists, Sweet Family Music has something for pretty much any alternative fan.