“Fallen”, the new album from legendary hardrock  Stryper, will be released worldwide on Friday, October 16 via Frontier Records. The CD was tracked at SpiritHouse Recording Studios in Northampton, Massachusetts and will include a cover version of the Black Sabbath classic ‘After Forever’.

I took his original idea and somehow created this 6:30 minute song, which is quite epic and honestly may be one of the most powerful songs we’ve done in a long time. I sent it to Chris Jericho (Fozzy) and he texted me writing, “Yahweh is your best tune, maybe since you reunited”. Clint is a very great and gifted writer so I wanted to have him involved in one way or another. Once the song was mixed I sent it to Clint and he responded with, “The tune is amazing man. It’s got that old school spirit with this modern take. That choir vibe on chorus is beautiful. Vibe change for the solo. Epic my man. Solos are stellar. I don’t remember sending anything near this cool ; ).” We’re excited to be able to finally share this song with all of you!”

The cover artwork for “Fallen”, which also can be seen below, was designed by Stanis Decker, who worked with Stryper on 2013’s “No More Hell To Pay”. Stryper frontman Michael Sweet says: ‘We sent Stanis the concept about Lucifer being cast out of heaven and he sent us this amazing illustration, capturing the original idea perfectly. We’re excited to be able to finally show all of you!’

Regarding the musical direction of the new Stryper material, Sweet said: ‘It’s gonna be… I don’t wanna scare any fans away or anything, but it’s gonna be the heaviest album we’ve done. Not in the sense that it’s gonna be thrash metal or anything like that. It’s definitely got a little bit of a darker vibe to it lyrically and musically. Some of the songs are tuned down — not like the modern dropped B stuff; I’m talking like the E dropped to D, ‘Unchained’ Van Halen kind of stuff. And it’s just got a heavy sound to it. And I think when people hear it, in a good way, they’re gonna go, ‘That’s Stryper? What?’ I think they’re gonna be shocked.’

In other news, Ulterium Records recently announced the release of a limited double gatefold vinyl edition of the Stryper live album “Live at the Whisky”. A deal was inked with Frontiers Records and the European release date is set to August 7th. The edition is strictly limited to 300 copies worldwide.

The vinyl edition features new artwork created by Jan Yrlund of Darkgrove Design. Artwork and tracklist can be seen here.