Although it takes a full three and a half minutes before Michael Sweet unleashes his first scream of the new Stryper album, you’re in no doubt at all about who you are listening to just seconds after opening track End of Days kicks in; This is pure, unadulterated Stryper from start to finish.

That said, the band do make one or two stylistic tweaks along the way to keep things interesting. Second track Unforgivable, for instance, borrows the riff from Mötley Crüe‘s Shout at the Devil as the bass for a chunky, groovesome slab of riff rock, whilst the title track eschews the heaviness of the band’s later work for something altogether more in keeping with To Hell With The Devil or In God We Trust, with Sweet and Oz Fox‘s duelling leads in particular rolling back the years in tear-jerking style. This is undoubtedly a good thing.

Indeed, whilst I’ve always been an admirer of Stryper’s steely-eyed dedication to the metal cause over the course of their last few albums, it has to be said that this slight return back to more accessible songwriting did cause rather a frisson of excitement on first listen to WWWK; If you’re a fan of the band’s work from the very start then tracks like Betrayed By Love are going to get you very hot under the collar indeed, with Sweet’s superb vocals soaring over the muscular-yet-sensitive riffage in gloriously nostalgic fashion. But it’s the supremely crafted Rhyme of Time that hits hardest in this style; Dennis DeYoung jamming with 1987-era Whitesnake? we’ll have some of that! If this track doesn’t come close to song of the year plaudits in the Strickmann household come December, I’d be very surprised…

Grateful is another goosebump-inducing trip backwards, but the chugging intensity of Trinity will go some way to assuaging fans of the band’s heavier side that they are softening in their old age; The chorus is one of the album’s absolute highlights, and it’s absolutely impossible not to pick up the nearest air guitar and get involved with this one.

This isn’t career-defining mayhem or a surprise return to form – Stryper are just too ggod, too consistent for that –  but it is perhaps the sound of a band luxuriating in an ability to put together an album that truly cherry picks from the best of a venerated career to create something undoubtedly very special indeed. And for that reason it’s the best thing they’ve done in quite some while.

When We Were Kings releases on September 13th.