Dragontown Belleville IL

Dragontown

Alice Cooper

Spitfire Records, 2001

REVIEW BY: Roland Fratzl

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/02/2001

Well, who on Earth would have thought that after breaking a longsix year silence in 2000 with the stunning Brutal Planet album that Alice Cooper would follow up withhis next studio album barely a year later in October 2001?Thankfully for him and for us, he realized that he was in asongwriting zone with Brutal Planet, an album that many critics considered hisbest work in many years, perhaps even since his early 70's peak,and he wisely chose to strike while the proverbial iron was hot,creating Dragontown, another concept album dealing with mankind'sgradual downfall. Musically and thematically, it's a direct sequelto Brutal Planet.

One could forgive Alice for not being able to match the powerand ferocity of Brutal Planet, but in terms of overall quality, Dragontown comes astonishingly close. While sonically itcontains many of the intense industrial-tinged elements of Brutal Planet, such as the proliferation of ultra-heavilylayered and distorted downtuned jackhammer guitar riffs, thunderousrhythms, and ominous low end rumbles amid Alice's tortured vocals, Dragontown is much more musically diverse than itspredecessor. It sounds somewhat as if Alice had taken the modernindustrio-metallic punch he discovered on Brutal Planet and applied that sound to various quirkystyles that he has experimented with in the past, in addition toexperimenting with several contemporary trends, creating yetanother album in his insanely lengthy discography that soundsdifferent from all the others. How a 53 year old rocker like Coopermanages to sound fresh and inventive with each release simplyamazes me.

According to Cooper, Dragontown is the worst single place on thefictional Brutal Planet, and each song is a unique tale of fallenangels with the roots firmly placed in thinly disguised real-lifetargets that he relentlessly criticizes through another serving ofingenius lyrics...some might find his current style a tad preachy,but at least he's promoting a very positive message by exposing theevils in society through the application of brilliant sarcasm thathe has always been a master at.

People who were a little overwhelmed by Brutal Planet's unflinchingly serious approach and intensedual bombardment of a thrashingly violent sound and venomous lyricswill no doubt rejoice that while Dragontown is often just as hard hitting both sonically andlyrically. Alice's patented cynical tongue in cheek sense of humouris on full display again on many of the album's tracks.