The Eyes Of Alice Cooper

The Eyes Of Alice Cooper is the latest album from the master of the macabre and it's quite simply the album that die-hard Alice Cooper fans have been waiting for him to make ever since classics like Welcome To My Nightmare. Alice and his band were rehearsing some new material just prior to an upcoming tour earlier this year and happened to run into producer Andrew Murdock (Mudrock) known for his work with Godsmack. As it turned out, Mudrock loved the new material and coincidently just had a band cancel on him and was now available. In the 5 weeks form that day on, they whipped up one of the freshest and "classic" sounding Alice Cooper albums in years. The whole idea was to get back to the basics and record as live as possible with little overdubs and create an honest yet still contemporary album. Written by Alice himself along with his 2 guitar players, Eric Dover and Ryan Roxie, they've gone back to relive some of Alice's past but show that what once was old can become new again. The classic Alice style is starting to show it's influence on some of the newer bands, White Stripes for instance and the timing for this album is perfect. Veteran drummer Eric Singer (Badlands, Kiss) once again delivers a solid performance and the bass is handled by newcomer to the band, Chuck Garric (Dio).

The whole vibe to this album from the music to Alice's tongue-in-check and almost taunting vocal style really takes you back to albums like Love It To Death, Killer and School's Out. The catchiness of straight ahead rock tunes like What Do You Want From Me and Bye Bye Baby complete with saxophones and horns really reminds the listener of songs like Under My Wheels whereas the haunting and creepy This House Is Haunted sends one back to the Welcome To My Nightmare album and the track Years Ago. Detroit City sees Alice celebrating his roots and a nod to the classic artists that originated from the Motor City (MC5, Iggy and The Stooges, Bob Seeger, Ted Nugent etc.). A rollicking and reckless track that even features former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer putting in a guest appearance. Novocaine is one of the most clever and catchy Alice Cooper songs to come out in years and is in fact the first single to be released from the album. With the classic raunchy 70's guitar sound, a great vocal and a chorus that sticks in your head immediately, Alice has written one very radio-friendly song here! Man Of The Year, one of my favorites on the album, sees the world through the eyes of a very egotistical person who thinks that everything about him and his life is perfect in every way even in death as he mentions how God would be pleased to meet him. A great sarcastic vocal style and some great witty phrases make for a great classic Alice Cooper track.

Alice proves to still be a great all round vocalist with his very touching ballad, Be With You Awhile. A very honest and heart-wrenching vocal delivery brings songs like I Never Cry and How You Gonna See Me Now to mind. He delivers one of the purest vocal performances I've ever heard from him and his voice sounds better than ever. Alice shows that he can still rock out with the best of them with the Foo Fighters flavored Between High School And The Old School as well as the punk flavored I'm So Angry and the reckless abandon of Backyard Brawl. He can still kick some serious ass...believe it!!! One of the best tracks certainly is the sort of novelty song The Song That Didn't Rhyme. Alice sings about a song whereby the melody blows, the drummer's out of time and everyone hates it. He probably had this melody in his head and couldn't quite get a song out of it. The solution?....write a song about that very aspect. With some of the funniest and clever lyrics he's ever done, Alice manages to keep you listening for the enitre 3 minutes of the song, apologizes for wasting your time and then thanks you for the $12.99 for buying the CD......brilliant!!!

Even though Alice has gone back to his roots to in a sense "relive the past" so to speak, he's done it without sounding dated and delivers a fresh sounding album that is as classic Alice Cooper sounding as anything he's done before. The dark and more modern sounds of Brutal Planet and Dragontown are non-existent here. This album sandwiches itself somewhere between Killer and School's Out and bears little resemblance to anything that he's done in the last 10-15 years or so. The man is still the master of writing catchy pop rock and hard rock tunes and even without all the theatrics, he's a top-notch song writer. Fans of the classic (how many times have I used that word!!!) Alice Cooper sound should run out and buy this one immediately as it's what we've all been waiting for him to do for many years now.