ALICE COOPER -The Revenge of Alice Cooper – review

ALICE COOPER -The Revenge of Alice Cooper – review
earMusic

Now then, now then, how’s about that, then! That was a catchphrase, round about the time that Alice Cooper last released a new album. Which means it’s the first time I’ve been old enough to buy a new Alice Cooper album, on the day of release. Didn’t see that one coming. Didn’t see the Hairy Cornflake coming either, but that was the seventies for you.

Of course, I have many, many Alice Cooper records and have seen Alice Cooper live, many, many times. In fact, I was at an Alice Cooper concert, the first time I got stabbed. Good times. I’ve also got all the OG Alice Cooper records, including the first two, iffy ones. But I’ve never seen OG Alice Cooper live. Bit tricky what with them splitting up when I was attending primary school. In shorts. As a pupil. Of the correct age. Not in a noncey way. Still with me?

Which means I’ve been waiting, what? Forty five years, since I bought my first Alice Cooper album. A second hand copy of “Love It To Death”. From Ezy Ryder, in the Oddfellows Hall. Tremendous.

So. Was it worth the 50 year wait? Sort of. There are some cracking OG Alice Cooper tunes here. There’s also the type of filler that has bedevilled solo Alice for the last couple of decades. And you can’t reproduce the air of danger that hung around the OGs. Not when your singer is 77, your bassist, Dennis Dunaway, 78, your rhythm guitarist, Michael Bruce, 77, your drummer, Neal Smith, 77, and your lead guitarist, Glen Buxton, dead. But they give it a fair old go. Dennis Dunaway, incidentally, is an absolute beast on this record. Some of the finest bass playing I’ve heard in years.

Like my most records released these days, there are too many songs. 14 on your regular version, 16 on the bonus tracks version. And, does a quick count, four of the regular tracks could have been trimmed. That brings us down to 10 and, of those, 6 seem like bona fide OG Alice Cooper of old. Which is actually a better rate of return than I expected.

So, ‘Black Mamba’, ‘Kill The Flies’, ‘Blood On The Sun’, ‘What A Syd’, ‘Intergalactic Vagabond Blues’, and ‘What Happened To You’ are the winners for me. ‘Kill The Flies’ and ‘Blood On The Sun’ are genuine OG Alice Cooper songs from days gone by. The former is a solo Dennis Dunaway composition and it seems as though a lot of the songs have been hanging around for a long time. Which could explain why they sound olde. I’m probably making this up, but I think I read somewhere that ‘Wild Ones’, the second single was first conceived in the 80s when Dunaway and solo Alice had a jam session with the latter’s then guitarist, Kane Roberts.

And, of course,’ What Happened To You’, which features original guitarist Glen Buxton, goes even further back in the mists of times. What else is good? Well, ‘What A Syd’, is definitely top notch. One of the weird things that OG Alice Cooper would come out with. Very ‘Gutter Cat vs. the Jets’. On the down side, no-one needs the Yardbirds cover version, and the Michael Bruce solo written song,’Famous Face’ needed an intervention, not a recording.

Although there are a few too many hired hands chipping in, at least all the remaining members appear on all the songs. Bob Ezrin is in the producers chair and he seems to have remembered the 70s. So he hasn’t sucked the life out of the music as he did on the last solo Alice record, “Road”. And its predecessor, “Detroit Stories”. And its predecessor “Paranormal”. And its predecessor “Welcome 2 My Nightmare”. You get the picture.

With Glen Buxton refusing to make a zombie like return, which would really have suited the artwork, relative newbie, Gyasi Hues, shoulders most of the lead guitar work. A quick glance at his website explains why. The lead single, ‘Black Mamba’, has The Doors’ Robby Krieger on guitar, and it’s a shame they couldn’t persuade him to leave Los Angeles for the recording. Whenever that was, as it seems that most of this record has been lying around for a few years now.

There are songs about snakes (obvs), lunatic asylum inmates (obvs), three eyed aliens (obvs). Just the usual. There’s also a lot of the garage rock style that appears every time solo Alice gets together with the OGs. And we’ve heard that too many times. But ‘Blood On The Sun’ is the one song that I will return to again and again. It’s exactly what made the OG Alice Cooper so special.

Depending on what format you buy, there are also two other songs. ‘Return Of The Spiders 2025’ is a reworked version of a song from “Easy Action”, originally released in 1970, while an alternate version of ‘Titanic Overunderture’, originally on “Pretties For You” takes things right back to the beginning. That was the first song on the first album and with this record closing with ‘See You On The Other Side’, the circle of Alice Cooper is complete.