Published on Oct 26, 2001
Well it’s about friggin’ time!
Alice Cooper finally managed to regain his classic songwriting
touch with the release of
The Last Temptation in 1994, after more than a decade of
suffering from chronic sobriety. I’ve heard of long drawn out,
painful withdrawal before, but eleven years and four crappy albums
in a row?? Call up Ripley!
So, just when you thought it was safe to dismiss Alice due to
his previous decade of output as an indication that he was totally
washed up and irrelevant, he comes roaring back in 1994 with easily
his best album since at least
Dada in 1983, and maybe even since his absolute peak,
Welcome To My Nightmare, all the way back in 1975!
It seems that suddenly he woke up at some point in the early
90’s and asked himself what the hell he was doing pandering to a
brainless audience by dumbing down his approach to writing lyrics
and music, then promptly decided to work on a good quality album
like in the past, masterfully writing up a nifty little twisted
story with the assisstance of reknowned graphic novel/Sandman comic
writing guru Neil Gaiman.
The Last Temptation is very much an old fan’s dream album,
and I think that’s exactly what he set out to make, almost
apologetically. Now this is what the “comeback” album in the
mid-80’s should have been like (unlike the horrid
Constrictor), instead of endlessly toying around with a
bunch of stupid trendy genres that were to fizzle out after their
15 minutes in the spotlight…I have a strong feeling that this
album will not age or sound nearly as dated as all those 80’s
albums, but will rather fit in nicely with his timeless classics
from the 70’s.
This is an extremely dark, creepy album, yet punctuated with
melodic softer spots, and is also a concept album, very much
reminiscent of
Welcome To My Nightmare…in fact, I would almost say that
this is a direct sequel, featuring the return of our little boy
Steven. From beginning to end, the lyrics, instrumental playing,
arrangements, song writing, and production are fabulous. For the
first time in a long time, Alice was thinking and being creative
with his lyrical concepts again, and the music itself is inventive
and contains a depth not seen in years. If anything, this is the
album that really would have deserved to be his huge commercial
comeback.
I feel that each and every track contained within
The Last Temptation had hit potential, only without the
corny pop metal cliches dragging it down into fromage oblivion like
its predecessors. Unfortunately, this potential went unfulfilled,
save for some minor attention paid to the hilarious “Lost In
America”. For reasons unknown to me, he did not promote or tour for
this album, and it didn’t wind up selling very well. WHAT A TOTAL
WASTE! After spending a decade and a half in the creative doldrums
to finally break through again with fantastic material only to
watch it quietly disappear…such torment!
Mind you, I’m sure that the explosion of grunge a few years
prior to this album’s release probably had a lot to do with that.
Those were lean commercial times for veteran rock acts, and it
wasn’t “cool” to like someone like Alice Cooper. In a way you can
blame this album’s failure on the success of
Trash, which saw him return to the rock spotlight in a big
way in 1989, and probably erroneously caused a lot of young people
who latched on to him (and who didn’t know his history due to his
long absence) at the time to erroneously believe him to be nothing
more than an 80’s hair metal ambassador, unfairly sealing his fate
on the 90’s (pardon the pun) trash heap of disposable glam pop
metal along with scores of bands that he in no way deserves to be
compared with.
A surprising tidbit is that even though Cooper has almost always
taken current musical trends of every era and morphed them into
something distinctively all his own, he did not do so with this CD.
There are no hints of grunge anywhere, but
The Last Temptation is a refreshing return to a more classic
70’s sound except with glorious production, complete with heavy,
distinctive riffs, eerie melodies, and memorable hooks galore,
making for an extremely satisfying listen…you really should
treasure moments like this in his career, because nostalgia is
something he avoids for the most part. And what can you say about
the cover artwork? Simply brilliant illustrations; probably the
best cover of his career.
When it comes to the music and the lyrics, the album is a prime
example of quality over quantity, so who cares how many copies it
sells! All that matters is restored pride in himself, and new hope
for long suffering fans, like myself! And who is this guitar player
Stef Burns? His riffs are very distinctive and full of bravado.
This album is just saturated with muscular, crunchy, meaty
guitar riffs that just sound positively evil, and that combined
with thunderous drumming and bone crunching bass, along with one of
Alice’s most twisted performances, lyrically and vocally, just
makes for a welcome return of the irresistable combination that
made all his classic albums such a delight. This has to be one of
his truly heaviest, darkest, and most demented albums… even the
sensitive ballads are not what they seem here…none of that 80’s
bullshit phony pop metal anywhere in sight…it’s Alice doing what
he does best: have a dark, psychotic edge and yet retain a sense of
humour… menacing, with a smirk.
“Sideshow” is an excellent introductory song, almost like
welcoming the listener to a circus. Very pleasant, misleadingly
upbeat song…nicely 70’s sounding, with inspired acoustic guitar
lines and horns filling out the sound; “Nothing’s Free” is a great
song about selling your soul to the devil, with some interesting
section changes and creepy story telling, with Alice singing (and
playing) the part perfectly. “Lost In America” is a hilarious joke
lampooning American trailer trash that is simply uproariously
funny, and deservedly one of the small hits from the album. It
sounds like a natural follower to such catchy early garage rock
classics like “Under My Wheels”. “Bad Place Alone” is another
fantastic track, with one of the most original, yet evil sounding
guitar riffs I’ve heard, as well as a sludgingly heavy beat;
“You’re My Temptation” yields more evil, unique guitar playing and
great melodies as well…excellent! “Stolen Prayer” is a moody,
mellower tune that somehow recalls a town in the old west, but it
soon also gets quite loud.
“Unholy War” is yet another stand out track that sounds as if it
came out of the depths of hell itself…this is Alice sounding his
scariest best, and the song also has excellent backing vocals from
singer-extraordinaire Chris Cornell, then of Soundgarden. “Lullaby”
is a very soft and sensitive sounding Alice, with a great melody
over an acoustic guitar, until you realize what he’s singing about
and before the song explodes into powerful wattage; “It’s Me” is a
classic 70’s style ballad and the most commercial sounding song
here, but it’s a wonderful addition to his repetoire, proving that
he still had ability to write music in diverse styles and moods…
unlike those cheesy 80’s power pop ballads, this one is more
restrained and subtle, which are definitely good qualities, not
relying on wankage so much.
“Cleansed By Fire” is an awesome epic album ending song in the
best traditon of his old classic albums, with it’s psychotic,
demented feel, more evil guitar, plodding pace, and haunting
chorus…definitely twisted stuff, and that’s exactly how he does
things best.
It still amazes me to this day how Alice managed to pull himself
up by the bootstraps and not just gradually work his way out of the
creative doldrums of the pop metal hell he had immersed himself in
for several years, but dramatically explode back into our naive
minds with his ingenius talent for telling tales from the darkside
with an entire album of instantly classic songs. Suddenly to go
from years of mediocrity to unexpectedly put out this
mini-masterpiece in 1994? There were subtle hints on
Hey Stoopid (the previous album) that he was heading in this
direction, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted a return
to his razor sharp edgy songwriting, culminating in one of his
strongest albums ever after years of indecisive middling.
The Last Temptation is the album where Alice Cooper serves
notice that he’s firing on all cylinders again and ready to take
over right where he left off, in say, 1978!
All in all one of his finest cd’s in every way imaginable…the
vintage Alice Cooper personality is found in full force here,
backed up with a collage of hard hitting, diverse, and memorable
tracks. Highly recommended to anyone curious about his music.