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

CD pre-orders coming soon on Amazon.com. We [Frontiers] and the band will post as soon as it is ready. First full track, ‘Yahweh’ will premiere the week of July 6th and when it does premiere, it will be available as an instant grat on iTunes (meaning, pre-order the album on iTunes and ‘Yahweh’ will download instantly). There will be no deluxe edition on this release, but trust us, this album is going to be more than enough to make you happy. It is AWESOME. We are biased of course, but really, we mean that. And maybe we’ll premiere more tracks after ‘Yahweh’ if you guys ask nicely….. says Frontier Records.

The cover artwork for “Fallen”, which 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.’

The new studio album will be the follow-up to “No More Hell to Pay” which was released on November 1st 2013  in Europe and November 5th 2013 in North America via Frontiers Records. The effort was made available in two formats — standard CD and deluxe digipak featuring exclusive video content. Produced by Stryper guitarist/vocalist Michael Sweet himself, the set features some of Stryper‘s strongest and heaviest material ever.

To read our review for “No More Hell To Pay” click here.

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.

Tracklist:
01. Yahweh
02. Fallen
03. Pride
04. Big Screen Lies
05. Heaven
06. Love You Like I Do
07. All over Again
08. After Forever
09. Till I Get What I Need
10. Let There Be Light
11. The Calling
12. King of Kings

Upcoming Shows:
Sept. 12 – House of Blues, Anaheim, CA, US

Video below: “Fallen” (Samples)