Album Review: Alice Cooper- Along Came A Spider

Before Marilyn Manson chose to shock the world with his antics, there was another great shock rocker.

Now, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 30 odd years, you’d know that there is only one musician that can sing ‘You look like you’d fit in the trunk of my car’ and still bring a smile to his fans face. And that is Alice Cooper

No one can quite put on a performance like the Coops, and he’s back to show them all how it’s done with Along Came a Spider.

While his last few studio albums sounded more like garage rock, Along Came A Spider goes back to the style that saw Alice Cooper produce masterpieces such as From The Inside, and Welcome To My Nightmare.

Right from the intro of ‘Prologue/I Know Where You Live’ you just know you’re in for a treat. No one does a concept album better than Alice Cooper. Determined to gain back his throne as the original Prince of Darkness, Cooper has interwoven crime, thrills, horror, and believe it or not, love into Along Came A Spider.

Each song is wrapped around a theme, which stars the cool and collected serial killer Spider. His victims see police baffled, with each of Spider’s victims are cocooned in a silk web, and missing a leg. 

Spider’s plan is to collect eight legs in order to complete the construction of his own spiders.

However, things never quite work out as they seem and it gets slightly stick when he falls in love with his eighth victim.

The themes of a serial killer terrorising female victims should be eerily familiar to Cooper’s fans, since it’s reminiscent of Cooper’s Raise Your Fist and Yell. In addition to the strong resemblance of Raise Your Fist, Cooper also pays ode to Welcome To My Nightmare in the last minute of the album.

‘I Am A Spider’- the spoken outro by Cooper makes reference to Steven, the character best known from 1975’s Welcome To My Nightmare. This isn’t the first comeback reference to Steven, who also appeared on the ending of the track ‘Windup Toy’ on Cooper’s Hey Stoopid.

Cooper’s used his touring band for this studio album, which sees Kiss’ drummer Eric Singer, bassist Chuck Garric, and guitarists Kerri Kelli and Jason Hook take on the bulk of the album.

There’s a strong bond between the band, which pays off well for Alice. Instead of sounding like a bunch of session musicians they actually sound like a full-fledged band.

Naturally no Alice Cooper album would be complete without some big name guests helping out.

Slash lays down a blistering solo on ‘Vengeance Is Mine’ and ‘Wake the Dead’ sees another shock rocker, Ozzy Osbourne, performs harmonica duties.

It’s hard to believe that this is Alice Cooper’s 25^th studio album, especially considering it’s a rather heavy album and definitely one of his darkest. While the themes are reminiscent of Welcome to my Nightmare and Raise Your Fist there is no doubt that the sound is still closer to Brutal Planet and Dragontown.

Along Came a Spider is a gruesome bedtime story from the Coops, and you wouldn’t expect anything less.

Whether it’s the sinister ballad (‘I Know Where You Live’) the psychotic jig (I’m Hungry’) or the hard rock anthem (‘Vengeance Is Mine’), there is no doubt that Alice Cooper still can pull strong punches.

This isn’t a perfect album, but for an Alice Cooper Operetta is brilliant. Sure, it’s no Killer, and it’s not going to produce some teenage anthems such as ‘School’s Out’ or ‘I’m Eighteen’, but it shows those who have shamelessly pinched, pilfered or plain ripped off his work, that there is still only one Master and his name is Alice Cooper.

Well worth it. I give it 3/5

Buy Along Came a Spider  ©ninadangelo 2011