Sunbomb is the highly anticipated new musical alliance between two steadfast warriors of the US hard rock/metal scene, Tracii Guns (L.A. Guns) and Michael Sweet (Stryper). They have put together an absolute blinder of a heavy metal album, melding influences of classic metal bands such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest with Tracii‘s love of metal sub-genres, specifically doom metal. The band’s debut album, “Evil And Divine,” is out May 14. A video for the album opener, ‘Life’, can be found below
According to a press release, “Evil And Divine” is “an absolute blinder of a heavy metal album, melding influences of classic metal bands such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, with Tracii‘s love of metal subgenres, specifically doom metal.”
Initiated and conceived after Serafino Perugino, president and A&R director of Frontiers Music, reached out to Tracii about working on a new musical project for the label, the idea of a classic heavy metal-sounding album was born. The music style on “Evil And Divine” is much heavier than what one would expect from these two musicians and is firmly planted in the “metal” category. While Tracii wrote the music for the album, the fact that Michael Sweet has been writing/playing in an increasingly heavier style in the latter era, and extremely well-received Stryper albums made him a very logical choice to sing for the band. And since doom metal, often known for having powerful singers like Messiah Marcolin from Candlemass, was a massive influence on Tracii‘s songwriting here, Sweet‘s ability and range were a perfect match.