Six years since the venerable Alice Cooper released his last studio album, a sequel to his best-known work called Welcome 2 My Nightmare (get it?), here’s another one. Paranormal lacks both the nostalgia factor of its predecessor and a concept such as the one behind 2008’s Along Came A Spider. It also can’t claim to be a return to heaviness such as Dragontown from 2001. So what does it offer? Not much, other than a moderately listenable set of songs and an excuse for the now 69-year-old veteran to get out on the road again. Fireball has, well, balls; Dynamite Road has a nicely sarcastic lyric from the old chap; and Rats showcases Cooper’s rock’n’roll influences in fair style. The rest? Listen once and forget.
Fortunately, Cooper’s new label earMUSIC, a German outfit who sign a lot of heritage rockers, understand the value of an Incentive To Buy™ and have made Paranormal into a tasty artefact. Two extra songs, the rambunctious Genuine American Girl and You And All Of Your Friends, recorded with the original Alice Cooper Band line-up, are the best tunes on here. Six live Cooper classics also add value – but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s not 1972, or even 1986, any more.
