ALICE COOPER “Welcome 2 my Nightmare” (Sept 2011)

Producer: Bob Ezrin
Label: Bigger Picture

Tracklist:
1. I Am Made Of You
2. Caffeine
3. The Nightmare Returns
4. A Runaway Train
5. Last Man On Earth
6. The Congregation
7. I’ll Bite Your Face Off
8. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever
9. Ghouls Gone Wild
10. Something To Remember Me By
11. When Hell Comes Home
12. What Baby Wants
13. I Gotta Get Outta Here
14. The Underture

Too Much Class For The neighbours…

Detroit, Michigan, the steel  and the jails, the fumes of aluminum make here unbreathable air. The future already stillborn, just need to horizon. Somebody watch an apocalyptic sound, and will lose in lines of too pure coke (Iggy & the Stooges), others take masks, summoning the spirits under the sweet eyes of Mama and will impose to the world a nightmarish entity. His name? ALICE COOPER. Shock the world !

Vincent Damon Furnier will irritate his nasal voice parents, WASP, to be honest and flood of musical saws of the seventies, Lord young person in anger, but non-dupe, playing to fear but to preserving with intelligence a Golden future. Parodies of executions, mutilations and blood, sweat and plastic dolls, this combo calls Zappa and will take him under his wings on its Straight label for two albums with trend psychedelic (“Pretty for You” and “Easy Action” in 1970). The successful delaying, Vincent Furnier appropriates completely his doppleganger, double evil and “becomes” Alice Cooper. Evil is done.

“A dagger to the heart of the generation of love”, this is what propones Alice. Bob Ezrin (21 years) will be the detonator, sended  half-heartedly by his boss Jack Richardson, who is washing his hands. Alice Cooper, too ugly, too dirty, too out of control…
“I m Eighteen” became the anthem that would have not renounced the Who and makes it fully “hysteriques” the hordes of young teens who are in this noisy scarecrow outfall, perfect in their evil being. Later, a certain Kurt Cobain will also find the path to their hearts… The sound is felt, becomes heavy, threatening. And the Visual is not at rest. The monster is ready to bite. Nothing to say, the 70’s will be magical but a nightmare for America…

1975, “Welcome in my Nightmare”, 8th album, and the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” Lou Reed has left traces in the collective unconscious…Steve Hunter (guitars), Dick Wagner (guitars) and John Prakash (bass) will be summoned to give life to this concept-album, narrating the nightmares of Alice, in total control of his art. Vincent Price there will come to burn a few dark words of deep voice…The album is an absolute success and offers to the scalp a sadistic “rictus”… then unfortunately the 1980s will no have pity for Alice and let him and his theatre of puppets to the single rank of attraction kitsh…

We move in silence the following years… jumping into this century… when Alice Cooper was reborn in the eyes of many fans with his excellent “Among Came The Spider” (2008), always cynical with the touch of second degree cooling.  The lovers of Yadbirds, Animals or even some Kinks, the slayer of high-minded leagues, at 63 years Alice has not yet finished to amaze us…

September 2011, who would have thought about it…?

Here’s the return of the “crazy moralizer”, the new avid sensations of mentally ill, the “chicken-eater” (well before Ozzy…), the legendary musician who gave us so much and so many good memories (and nightmares also…). He’s back! And he proves us with his new soberly titled “Welcome 2 my Nightmare”, an immediate result of his 1975 masterpiece with the Producer, co-writer and mixer, Bob Ezrin, and a range of good friends including Denis Dunaway, Michael Bruce, and Neal Smith, Desmond Child, and many more.

“Welcome” part 2 therefore. And what a slap.
Clearly, it was felt since the previous one but Alice was and is the Wonderland. This vintage gives what it promised: the best! Some sweets keys of piano and ghostly recessional voices from our deeper memory. Alice Cooper is powerful, nostalgic but arming of auto-tune (yes!) to enter modernity, a grain close to perfection when he murmurs “I am made Of You”, it is a total success, fumed by a “Floydien” solo guitar, who nails in us so much beauty. A power hit. And already it feels reassured… “Caffeine” taking his rock on a highway, it crosses this nonchalance to the seventies, immediate song, as it must be listened laid down with the eyes closed…

Atmospheric children rhythms, the always cursed piano, unhealthy, insidious… “The Nightmares returns” is the fundamental, and Announces in 1 mn 14 that the nightmare is not at all finished… The following confirms our judgment (“Runaway train”), Alice is wearing his most rutillants clothes, “Wham Bam Thank You Mam”, the last man on earth will be him, no doubt. It will end up in a cabaret but still with style (“Last Man Of Earth”).

Buried the violin, torn the heavy red curtain, “The Congregation” is more to “british” in the comments, a heavier Oasis of few kg of muscles. Beautiful success. The Stones are dead? Alice is Alive, and  feel Well. A perfect demonstration with “I’ll Bite Your Face Off”, rhythmic ad – hoc, everything is perfect, the sacred fire burns always. A killer.

The “UFO” of the album, no doubt, the most low and unnecessary song is “Disco Bloodbath Boogie fever” with these hearts that we imagine in an anorexic and escaped Red Army, and finally sympathetically aerated artwork, and furious guitars solos make you quickly smiling. “Ghouls Gone Wild” keeps the same desire that the previous song and is worthy an offshoot surf music, and it brings fun and decontraction in the maze of disturbed brain of a project manager.

This charming vintage touches with the superb ballad “Something To Remember Me By”, according to the Mr. Furnier, one of his finest compositions but just a little too short for my humble tastes. Martial heavy drums and the voice are vicious, the demon is back. “When Hell Comes Home” is threatening and pulling a few earthquakes. Clear production honour is the vocalizations of Alice, truly at the top. Here, one feels a welded, voluntary, and a hungry band.

The most “pop” song of the concept, which sees arising the talented Kesha, is “What Baby Wants” and it may even find the way to the most hermetic FM. A daring but bet that works. Refreshing. The tocsin, dark but liar, the next one is more playful. “I Gotta Get Outta Here” announces the alarm, Dawn points, where heavenly choruses shine above our nights, and finally I ask, if there will be nothing to fear… really…? “The Underture”, a musical epilogue or travel in time, sealed with high maestria of this album, in which it was a joy to find our old mascot Alice, the guardian of our guilty pleasures, the architect of the haunted castles of our youth, a faithful friend for more than 35 years…

Don’t take the wrong road, “Welcome 2 my Nightmare” is an invitation, a hug, a nostalgic walk to the Wonderland, alongside of one of the greatest artists of his generation (Bob Dylan lauds him), and who, as Peter Pan, never gets old, and who will always take care of us. It’s good to see you, Alice Cooper!

Reviewed by MEL DELACROIX