Alice Cooper
(Steamhammer/SPV)
After two albums of spirited, Killer-style glam-rock fueled by Cooper’s timeless sense of gallows humor, Along Came A Spider returns to the darker side explored on Dragontown and Brutal Planet. Only this time it’s personal — a concept album being pitched as “a dark and menacing album for dark and menacing times” as seen through the eyes of a serial killer named Spider.
It starts with a woman explaining that the killer’s diary has been found, followed by the band latching onto a muscular riff more in the style of early Kiss than early Alice Cooper (could be drummer Eric Singer) as the killer sneers, “I like to watch from my car.” Things get progressively creepier from there. The girl he’s stalking doesn’t seem to be in any danger, though, as least on that song. It’s her dates who wind up missing while the worst he does to her is sneak into her room at night (“I like to play with your hair when you sleep and you dream that there’s no one there”). It’s classic Cooper subject matter, but the overall tone is so dark than when he does go for comic relief, it’s just not funny (“I got a bed in my basement fit for two/I got some chloroform and handcuffs just for you”).
The sound throughout is harder rock than Cooper’s last two albums, especially “Vengeance is Mine,” a song that makes the most of some incendiary lead guitar from Slash. Other tracks range from ‘90s industrial with blues harp (“Wake The Dead”) to Killer-worthy Cooperisms (“(In Touch With) Your Feminine Side,” “I’m Hungry”) to a ballad as pretty as anything he’s done since “How You Gonna See Me Now” (“Killed By Love”).
Standout Tracks: “I Know Where You Live,” “Vengeance Is Mine” A. WATT
