ALICE COOPER: Something dark, sinister and deviant
PERFORMER: Alice Cooper
CD: “Along Came a Spider”
WEBSITE: www.alicecooper.com
Leave it to Alice Cooper to bless us with something dark, something sinister, something deviant — and something highly entertaining. “Along Came a Spider,” The Coop’s 25th studio album, contributes nicely to a catalog that has established him as one of rock’s most original storytellers.
It seems that about once per decade, The Artist Formerly Known as Vincent Furnier unveils a period-defining piece that mirrors society through the alter ego Alice (outside looking in, as it were). The 1970s had “Billion Dollar Babies,” while “Trash” and “The Last Temptation” presented a motif of the ’80s and ’90s, respectively.
“Spider” takes an inside-out approach where the story is more the character’s vision and voice rather than a perceived reflection. What unfolds is a good ol’ cloak-and-dagger love story that only the King of Shock can tell.
The scenario traces the goings on of a serial killer, Spider, who stalks specifically chosen victims, leaving them wrapped in his trademark silk once the deed is done — an arachnophobic version of “Psycho,” if you will.
Cooper calls it “a dark and menacing album for dark and menacing times.”
It’s clear from the line “I just do the things I do/It’s natural to me/There’s no rhyme or reason for my odd insanity” from “Wake the Dead” that we’re dealing with a methodical fiend who taunts investigators with the song “Catch Me If You Can.”
It’s all hunky-dory until girl meets bug, and the killer falls in love with his latest victim whom he cannot bring himself to kill. Could this be the end of Spider? Not to give it away, but let’s just say that Alice shows his affinity for Alfred Hitchcock in the suspense department.
Musically, “Spider” revisits a cornucopia of classic Cooper. “I Know Where You Live” and “I’m Hungry” sound like freshly laundered cuts from the early albums “Killer” and “School’s Out,” while “Killed by Love” recalls Alice’s ballad phase — remember “Only Women Bleed” and “I Never Cry”? The heaviness of more recent works is also well represented with “The One That Got Away” and “Vengeance Is Mine” (which features smokin’ lead work by Slash of Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver).
Cooper’s touring band (guitarists Keri Kelli and Jason Hook, drummer Eric Singer and bassist Chuck Garric) comes together to give the singer his tightest-sounding album in many a moon. And Alice’s vocals — in contrast to the majority of 60-plus rockers — are as strong and sneery as they were when he was a kid belting out “I’m Eighteen.”
The Cooper camp should be commended. The media blitz surrounding the album’s release has been electrifying. Check out www.alicecooper.com and follow the links; it gives a ton of album info and is a good study on how an artist should present a Web site.
In an era besieged by sub-par musicianship and nauseating trends, it seems that the geezers are accounting for a large proportion of quality albums (Priest, Motley, etc. also carry the torch with dignity). Alice Cooper wraps nearly 40 years of showmanship and social commentary into a disc that can be summed up, simply, as decadent pleasure.
(Thom Copher once touched Alice Cooper’s platform boots, which are on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He was escorted from the museum without incident.)
— By Thom Copher, Associated Press
