Alice Cooper’s ready to release his 27th album, “Paranormal,” in July.
It’ll be his first in six years, featuring guest performances from Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Larry Mullen (U2) and members of the original Alice Cooper group.
I’m an unabashed Alice fan; I see him every time he rolls through (see you in September). The last time I sat down to write about a new Alice Cooper album was 2008, when “Along Came A Spider” came out. I reviewed it for my friend Patrick’s zine and am republishing it here, warts and all, if for no other reason than I ranked Alice’s entire catalog at the end of it.
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Alice Cooper
Along Came A Spider
(SPV)
A new Alice Cooper album really only exists to serve existing Alice Cooper fans, and those fans are getting harder to please. Most gave up after “Trash.” Those still on board have only grudgingly accepted later-in-life releases like “The Last Temptation” and “The Eyes of Alice Cooper.” Call it a sense of duty. Call it nostalgia. Call it an unfulfillable hope that somehow Alice will write another song like “Elected” or “Ballad of Dwight Fry” before he goes to the Great Back Nine in the sky.
Because the possible appeal and saturation level of an Alice Cooper album in 2008 is limited to the black-mascaraed faithful, the only way to look at his recent concept album about serial killing, “Along Came A Spider,” is to hold it up against his previous four decades of catalog.
First, the good: “Along Came a Spider” has a more well-expressed concept than Alice’s previous, watershed, entry into the concept album arena, “Welcome to My Nightmare.” In a reverent nod, that album’s Steven manages to scare up a reference before ACaS’s boo-scary, plot-twist closing.
“Along Came a Spider” tells the James Patterson-lite story of a serial killer who creates a spider from the parts of his victims (those victims are wrapped in silk, ‘natch). It’s over-the-top, ridiculous—even stupid, at times. It’s also as close to “classic,” theatrical Alice as we’ve seen in a long while.
The best songs on the album, two in sum, are as good or better than anything since the late-80s. “(In Touch With) Your Feminine Side” is instantly familiar, seemingly crafted for fist-pumping karaoke sessions in either the violent crimes wing of your local prison or one of the outer rings of hell. Lyrically, it could be taken as an AC/DC-penned, lusty obsession for a member of the opposite sex. Looking at it within the album’s greater context, it’s really just a creepy ode to calculated stalking.
Stronger still is the soaring anthem “Salvation,” with its melancholy contemplation and pianos giving way to crashing guitars, understated guitar solo, and commanding vocal performance. It’s “Spider’s” finest moment; one that would have sounded just as natural on Cooper’s semi-autobiographical (and entirely underrated) insane asylum chronicle “From the Inside.”
Moving beyond “Salvation” and “Feminine Side,” the songs on “Along Came A Spider” are merely okay—not awful when they pop up in an iPod Shuffle, but nothing to intentionally add to an iPod playlist. The album’s “single,” “Vengeance Is Mine,” is mostly aimless, though ultimately harmless. And so goes the rest of the disc.
Looking at the album as one body of work, where the sum of the parts is ignored for an analysis of the greater whole, “Spider” lacks real bite. For an album about a truly lunatic serial killer, a self-described “arachnophobic psychopath” (“Catch Me If You Can”), “Spider” never feels dangerous. The album’s first song, “I Know Where You Live,” opens with a news report that sets up the album’s narrative. It’s flat exposition for its own sake, and amateur-sounding at that. For true opening chills, Cooper need only refer back to the title track of his “Dada” album, which still manages to evoke spontaneous pantshittings from the faint of heart.
Since Alice Cooper’s glory days, he’s found his golf swing and Jesus, but has never lost his unique skew on the world and what collectively freaks us out. And while “Along Came A Spider” doesn’t necessarily add to Cooper’s legacy, it doesn’t take away from it, either.
Finally, how does “Along Come A Spider” place among Alice’s other 25 decades-spanning works?
Billion Dollar Babies > Love it to Death > From the Inside > Welcome to My Nightmare > (added 5/9/17: Welcome 2 My Nightmare) > Lace and Whiskey > Trash > School’s Out > Hey Stoopid > Killer > Goes to Hell > Constrictor > Muscle of Love > Raise Your Fist and Yell > The Last Temptation > Along Came A Spider > Flush the Fashion > Dragontown > Dirty Diamonds > Easy Action > Brutal Planet > Dada > The Eyes of Alice Cooper > Special Forces > Pretties for You > Zipper Catches Skin
