The Whore's Trophy

The Whore's Trophy starts with the solo acoustic snippet "Perelandra," which sounds like one of the little folkish things Jimmy Page used to play in Led Zeppelin just before the Marshall stacks kicked in. It leads directly into the grandly titled "For Now We See in a Mirror, Dimly, But Then Face to Face," a more typical piece of hoarsely screamed metalcore, and unfortunately, there's not much change in dynamics from that point onward. A Christian-oriented band (the album's press kit claims that The Whore's Trophy is a concept album based on the titular quote from the Book of Revelations), Symphony in Peril deserve credit for proving that there are Christian metalheads much more musically credentialed than the somewhat embarrassing '80s hair farmers Stryper. However, the combination of moderately pretentious lyrics (which are helpfully included, since Shawn Jonas' vocals are pretty much indecipherable throughout) with the oddly retro, prog-like structure of many of these songs gives the album a patina of implied "importance" that it finally can't support. The Whore's Trophy skates uncomfortably close to some of Spinal Tap's goggle-eyed pretensions.