Bang My Head Again

Stryper have a new album coming out in a couple of weeks. I know that they aren't the greatest thing to ever happen to music, but I really like them a lot. I also know that listening to their music back in high school helped me. Whitecross is also releasing a newly recorded version of their debut album. The clips I've heard totally blow away the original. I was a metal head and they opened up a new world for me. I never imagined that Christians could play music as cool or as heavy as the stuff I enjoyed. I knew about Amy Grant and had even heard Petra but Stryper were MY kind of music. They were as heavy Motley Crue and Quiet Riot and they sang about Jesus. It was exactly what a wayward teenage church kid like me needed. Stryper introduced me to other Christian metal bands like Whitecross and Bloodgood and they kept from totally diving headfirst into the secular scene. Most of my friends were die-hard metal dudes and they gave me grief for listening to some of the stuff I did. But Stryper and Whitecross and some of those other bands weren't any different musically so they didn't mind them. They kept a little bit of my childhood faith from washing away during those years. I can't say that I got through the experience totally unscathed but I did come out on the other end and I give those groups some credit for that. Even when I was into the whole partying thing, I still had lyrics glorifying God going through my head. I like to think they helped preserve that part of me that knew I was wrong. I dunno...maybe I'm way off base.

I do know that I'll be picking up copies of both CDs.