Metal Hall of Fame inductees Stryper are proving their creative fire still burns bright with the release of Throne of Thorns, their 18th studio album, arriving September 25, 2026. The veteran rockers have launched the new single and official video "Here In Your Heart" to preview the album, while simultaneously announcing their Four Decades and Counting headline tour this fall.
After 43 years in the trenches, the band is calling Throne of Thorns potentially their best work yet—a bold claim from a group with nearly two decades of studio releases under their belt. The new single "Here In Your Heart" showcases the signature sound that has kept Stryper relevant across multiple generations of metal fans, blending melodic hooks with the powerful riffs that defined their career.
The timing of the album and tour underscores Stryper's continued relevance in the hard rock and heavy metal landscape. While many of their peers from the 1980s have either disbanded or exist solely as nostalgia acts, Stryper continues to write, record, and tour with the same intensity that launched their career more than four decades ago. The Four Decades and Counting tour title says it all—this is a band celebrating longevity while keeping their eyes firmly on the future.
Stryper's induction into the Metal Hall of Fame recognized their unique contribution to heavy metal history. Emerging in the early 1980s, they carved out a distinctive niche by combining arena-ready metal with positive lyrical themes, proving that heavy music didn't require darkness to deliver power. Their platinum-selling albums and anthems like "To Hell with the Devil" and "Calling on You" made them MTV staples and brought metal to audiences who might never have embraced the genre otherwise.
The band's influence extends beyond their commercial success. Stryper demonstrated that metal could be both commercially viable and uncompromising in its musical vision, paving the way for countless artists who refused to fit into neat categorical boxes. Their technical proficiency, songwriting chops, and unmistakable visual aesthetic made them impossible to ignore during metal's golden age.
With Throne of Thorns and the fall tour, Stryper once again reminds the metal world why they earned their place in the Hall of Fame—through relentless dedication to their craft and an unwavering commitment to their fans.
