The Eyes Of Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Spitfire/Eagle Records, 2003
REVIEW BY: Roland Fratzl
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09/30/2003
The first few years of the 21st century have seen Alice Cooper's
busiest creative period since the late 1980's. To quickly recap, in
late 1999, the sprawling four-disc career spanning box set,
The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper, was released, bringing
rock music's greatest shock rocker (and just plain overall great
rocker) back into the spotlight after several years in obscurity.
This was quickly followed up by the critically-acclaimed
Brutal Planet studio album in 2000, Cooper's first disc of
new material in six years. Year 2001 saw the release of both a new
greatest hits package (
Mascara & Monsters: The Best Of Alice Cooper), and
Brutal Planet's conceptual continuation, the studio album
Dragontown. And in a truly shameless plug, you can go and
enjoy reading my reviews of all the albums mentioned above
right here on the Daily Vault, in the
archives.
So, with the Halloween season of 2003 upon us, Alice Cooper
returns once again with another palette of fresh new music that
clearly demonstrates that he is still in the zone of superb
songwriting quality that began with his
Brutal Planet comeback 3 years ago.
Indeed, the somewhat misleadingly titled
The Eyes Of Alice Cooper (sounds more like something you'd
call a greatest hits compilation, doesn't it?) is Cooper's 23rd
studio album in a career that now spans 35 years, and it is the
fourth straight disc that has no filler. That's certainly no small
feat for an artist who's been around for such a long time,
especially one who has arguably been through as many phases as
David Bowie.
Before I continue, I should explain that the
Brutal Planet storyline was conceived as a trilogy, and
although
The Eyes Of Alice Cooper follows the first two albums of
that trilogy (
Brutal Planet and
Dragontown), it is NOT the conclusion of the story. Cooper
said he simply wanted to take a breather and release nothing more
than a collection of uplifting, meat and potatoes rock 'n roll
songs, with no concept in sight, before returning to complete the
Brutal Planet trilogy in the future.
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