Stryper's 'Throne of Thorns' Gets the Dad-Rock Treatment While California Vinyl Culture Refuses to Die

There's a peculiar irony happening across the Atlantic right now. The United Kingdom, a country with the single most credible claim to having invented heavy metal, has spent the last several years treating its own genre with a kind of exhausted cynicism — more interested in gatekeeping old debates than championing anything new. California has never had that problem. Whether it's a 40-year-old Orange County heavy metal band getting a fresh look from a podcast dad, a Sunset Strip guitar legend dropping a horror-themed single, or a hardcore crew getting a Roadrunner deal, the Golden State treats its metal history and its metal future as the same ongoing project. This week's headlines prove it again.