As much of an Alice Cooper fan as I am, I’ve found his recent releases deeply disappointing. The songwriting on Road and Detroit Stories felt lazy and reheated. His last truly great album came over thirty years ago. I still count The Last Temptation among his very best, right up there with Love It To Death, Killer, Welcome To My Nightmare, and From The Inside. There have been some very good albums since then. Brutal Planet was a powerful reinvention for the industrial and nu-metal era, and the return to garage rock on The Eyes of Alice Cooper and Dirty Diamonds was a welcome shift. Paranormal also had its moments and felt like a modest return to form after the abysmal Along Came A Spider and Welcome 2 My Nightmare.
For years, fans have been hoping for a full reunion with the original band, which split after Muscle of Love. Alice went solo and left them behind, occasionally inviting them back for a song or two, or bringing them onstage for one-off performances, most notably in London in 2017. But The Revenge of Alice Cooper marks the first full album with the original band since 1974, and that in itself is a major event. Also returning is Alice Cooper’s unofficial fifth Beatle, Bob Ezrin, the producer behind School’s Out, Billion Dollar Babies, Welcome To My Nightmare, KISS’ Destroyer, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall. (Check out our Bob Ezrin playlist here.)
Of course, original lead guitarist Glen Buxton couldn’t be part of the sessions; he passed away in 1997. His role is filled here by glam rock revivalist Gyasi Hues and longtime collaborator Rick Tedesco.
The production is oddly digital and compressed. Instrument separation is sharply defined, which allows every nuance to be heard clearly, but also flattens the energy.
Alice’s voice sounds strong. Naturally, it has aged, but he knows exactly how to use it. In fact, it is not just one voice. Much like Mick Jagger, Alice has several, each with its own tone, phrasing, and mood. He shifts between them as needed. He does not use the full range here, but glimpses do surface.
It is clear that Alice holds the reins. This feels more like a solo record than a genuine group effort. The distinctive traits of the original band have been sanded down, especially the rhythm section of drummer Neal Smith and bassist Dennis Dunaway, once one of the strangest and most inventive of the 1970s.
The songwriting follows the same path: standard structures, predictable turns.
Much of the album feels generic. It is competent, polished, and technically sound, but lacking the eccentricity and edge. The psychedelic and slightly prog-leaning side of the band’s personality is gone, except for a few scattered traces.
It also feels rushed, especially the lyrics. Instead of carrying the charge of urgency or spontaneity, it leaves behind a sense of sloppiness and indifference.
The album opens with three songs that aim for menace, but rarely strike.
“Black Mamba” moves at a slow crawl, dressed in garage horror aesthetics. The snake-as-sex metaphor is tired. Sexy but dangerous, Eros and Thanatos. It is all very clumsy. There is, however, a great guitar solo from Robby Krieger. The atmosphere reaches for something like “Black Ju Ju,” but never escapes its novelty feel. “Wild Ones” is a faster, leaner piece centered around motorcycle gangs. The riff hints at “Under My Wheels” and the proto-metal aggression of Gun’s “Race With The Devil”, but it is just another generic tune that feels hastily slapped together. “Up All Night” opens with a heavy metal riff, followed by a solo that catches fire. Unfortunately, the lyrics are juvenile, a limp attempt at sexual braggadocio that undercuts the playing.
“Kill the Flies” begins with promise. The mood is darker, and the chords carry a slight unease. A faint echo of “Halo of Flies” hovers over the intro but is quickly dispelled by a rigid structure and a forgettable riff. There are some interesting vocal accents and a strong slide guitar solo. The rhythm section, however, remains fixed in place. In the past, a track like this would have twisted into something unpredictable. Here, it settles too soon.
“One Night Stand” channels the cinematic sleaze of the 1970s albums. The bass comes to life, the solos land cleanly, and the whistled motif recalls garage-era swagger. A stronger lyric might have elevated the piece, but the writing is again thin, and the tension never fully develops.
“Blood on the Sun” opens with restraint and gradually builds toward something more melodic. The progression has shape, and the drums finally push against the structure. There are some subtle turns here that keep it from stalling, though the production continues to smooth over its sharper edges.
“Crap That Gets In the Way of Your Dreams” borrows broadly from The Kinks but ends up sounding like early KISS, which is ironic. The arrangement is formulaic, and the lyrics are perfunctory.
“Famous Face” has no real melody to hold onto, and the riff could belong to any mid-tier hard rock act from any decade. A few background keys drift in at the end, hinting at a more textured arrangement, but they arrive too late.
Two tracks manage to carve out a stronger identity. They do not redefine the album, but they remind the listener of what once set this band apart.
“Money Screams” is the first song that feels lived in. The rhythm coils rather than marches. The melody breathes. The lyrics are finally sharp, delivered with precision. This one would not sound out of place on Killer or Billion Dollar Babies. It has mood, and it moves with purpose.
“Intergalactic Vagabond Blues” pays homage to The Yardbirds and does so without self-consciousness. The tempo shift, the rave-up, the phrasing. It all works. The lyrics are just the right kind of weird. The performance feels less like reenactment and more like continuation. For a moment, the album feels awake.
“What a Syd” tries to summon the warped lounge feel of “Crazy Little Child” but lacks its strangeness. The bones are there: piano, loose rhythm, jazzy cabaret atmosphere. But the arrangement feels stiff. The guitar solo is a highlight, though it plays in isolation. “I Ain’t Done Wrong,” a Yardbirds adaptation of an older blues number, fares better. Alice adds harmonica, the guitars push forward, and the whole thing feels more grounded. The track does not reinvent anything, but it plays without hesitation. A more adventurous rhythm section might have taken it further.
“What Happened to You” features guitar parts recorded by Glen Buxton before his death. A noble inclusion, although the parts feel disconnected from the rest of the track. The song itself is brisk, anchored in the same spirit as “Under My Wheels.” It does not break new ground, but it is direct and unpretentious. As a live closer, it would work.
“See You On the Other Side” brings the album to a quiet conclusion. It sounds like a farewell. The tone and phrasing recall Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.” The arrangement is stripped down, the lyric simple, the delivery bare. Alice closes the record with a line that lands without decoration: “we’ll rock the night away.”
It is always a pleasure to hear Alice Cooper’s unmistakable voice, still capable of shifting between theatrical menace, dry humor, and something more fragile when the moment calls for it. The album, uneven as it may be, succeeds in evoking the atmosphere of those early records, with their outlaw posturing, their monster-movie grime, and their garage-born sleaze, while also absorbing the elements Alice has explored in the years since the original band disbanded. There are traces of punk, AOR, heavy metal, and the solid, no-frills architecture of classic hard rock shaped for stadiums and FM radio. Much of the songwriting, unfortunately, falls short of that legacy. Several tracks feel generic, some unfinished, others simply uninspired, and the lyrics in particular often land with a thud. This is no minor flaw, especially given how essential sharp, strange, and theatrical writing was to Alice’s finest work. Still, the fact remains that the core members of this once-wild and unpredictable group have come together to make music again after more than half a century apart, and there is something inherently powerful in that. The album does not recover the danger of their best material, nor does it push into new territory, but the sound of them in the same room, however polished, however restrained, allows a flicker of that old chemistry to emerge. Just like everything fleeting and ephemeral, it is precious.
Genre: Hard Rock
Release date: July 25th, 2025
Produced by: Bob Ezrin
Label: earMusic
Rating: 6/10
We are discussing this album at our very own Electric Eye Forums. Click HERE to join the conversation!
