Alice Cooper is no stranger to concept albums, be it a loose outline of two volumes of “Welcome To My Nightmare” to a tighter yarn of “From The Inside” to a gripping account of “Along Came A Spider” to mention but a few of the veteran’s excursions into musical storytelling. There’s no wonder, then, in his newest endeavor – titled “Road” and scheduled to hit the shelves on August 25th – detailing life on tour in quite a coherent manner. However, reading the tracklist is an arresting exercise in itself.
Of course, Cooper’s adventures – touched upon in such books as "No More Mr Nice Guy" by his colleague Michael Bruce or "Rock And Roll Warrior" by his road manager David Libert – are riveting even without a tune attached to them but, given melodies, they should sound marvelous. Produced by the faithful Bob Ezrin, who co-penned most of the pieces on display, the new platter – to be made available not only as a standalone CD but also as a CD+DVD+Blu-ray package – features, alongside Alice’s regular companions Ryan Roxie, Nita Strauss, Tommy Henriksen, Glen Sobel and Chuck Garric, prominent guests: his fellow Detroiter Wayne Kramer of MC5 fame, whose input is all over “Rules Of The Road,” RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s Tom Morello, who co-wrote “White Line Frankenstein,” BUCKCHERRY’s Keith Nelson, who contributed to a couple of songs, and former collaborator Kane Roberts adding to “Dead Don’t Dance” here.
Pay attention to the titles, though, as “White Line Frankenstein” follows “Feed My Frankenstein” and “Teenage Frankenstein”; “Dead Don’t Dance” comes in the wake of “Dance Yourself To Death”; “Go Away” looks linked to “Go To Hell”… So there seems to be a lot of connections to Cooper’s previous oeuvre, which is par for the course in a concept context, while “Baby Please Don’t Go” and the finale “Magic Bus” looks like covers of classic material by artists Alice respects.
Road
1. I’m Alice
2. Welcome To The Show
3. All Over The World
4. Dead Don’t Dance
5. Go Away
6. White Line Frankenstein
7. Big Boots
8. Rules Of The Road
9. The Big Goodbye
10. Road Rats Forever
11. Baby Please Don’t Go
12. 100 More Miles
13. Magic Bus
