Music Appreciation: Sacred Warrior’s “Waiting in Darkness”

I’ve been boning up on a lot of the Christian hair metal bands from the eighties that aren’t Stryper: the likes of Barren Cross, Bloodgood, Sacred Warrior. Some of these bands are still going today, Sacred Warrior included. Their sound has understandably modernized with their newest album, Waiting in Darkness, but echoes of the music from their earlier days remain.

Below is a playthrough of the album’s title track. The harmonies on the chorus are notable, but what really jumped out at me was the guitar solo. Part of the nuance I think is that the solo and the backing instruments, starting at 3:30—and even with the bridge leading up to it—are in a different key or mode than the verse and chorus. Rise Against is one band that does this from time to time, to interesting effect. It sounds like there’s a bit of harmonic minor scale notes in there, too, the kind you often hear in Persian* music, and the vibrato bar business adds an extra unorthodox layer.

Not sure what’s going with the keyboards because I don’t hear them at all in the mix. I assume it’s maybe a scratch track to help with recording the vocals.

* Don’t be weird about me using the “Persian” description here. I’m talking about the music that (probably) developed in the general area before Iran was Iran and Persia was around.