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Rating: Stop stop stop… everyone hold on. Let's set the record straight with the history. Alice Cooper is an acronym adopted by Vincent Damon Furnier, Mike Bruce, Glenn Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, and Neil Smith… a combo from Detroit taking its first steps in garage-rock, releasing two singles under the name Nazz. But to avoid confusion with the band of the same name led by Todd Rundgren, they decided to adopt as their moniker the name and surname that would become the legacy of the frontman and would accompany him for three decades through his typical glam-kitsch-horror-commercial-metal. But this is a whole different story. The five moved from the motor capital to the sunny city of angels, where they enchanted Frank Zappa, who signed them to his label and sent them into the studio to create their debut "Pretties For You". Now here comes the good part.
I must admit I discovered this work late (just over a year ago), while I barely knew those that followed (especially the eighties ones), and the sonic amazement that struck me was incredible. It starts with "Titanic Ouverture" where 74 seconds of church organ played by a demoniac take center stage… "you would expect that from Alice Cooper", I thought… but with the next "10 Minutes Before The Worm" you enter a magically suspended world, the beginning of a dreamlike journey populated by psychedelic ghosts that recall the best visions of Lennon and Barrett, mystically fused with Zappa's witchcraft and laid on musical tapestries with imaginative patterns embroidered by the most inspired Floyd, endowed with the sonic liquidity of the Byrds eight miles high. And all this never leaves you throughout the album, up to the final "Changing Arranging", where the gothic vein timidly begins to make its way, amidst the fronds of a rugged and scorching psych-blues. Special mention must be made for the first 5 minutes and 47 seconds of "Fields Of Regret", where Alice the "bruja" predicts the future wall in which Roger Waters will enclose himself about a decade later… precisely defining its sound… where the intro and the end of the track are (((almost))) plagiarism… (but I also want to emphasize that the Pink Floyd of the seventies filched more than a few ideas here and there in this work).
But we know all good things come to an end, and soon they were on the road back to their hometown, which led within a few seasons the 4/5 of the group to abandon Vincent Damon to his fate, probably marked by the encounter with the biblical tempting serpent… But finally justice has been served, and another puzzling twist of history has been, modestly, unraveled. Bringing to light a project too soon overshadowed.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 10 Minutes Before the Worm (01:41)
Let me be
What a way for one to realize
Got away, so bored now, I seem
How he is so happy feeling sad
Everly depressed
Go die you
Think I will enjoy the view-oy the view-oy the view
Everything is standing still-ill-ill
07 No Longer Umpire (02:04)
We've been so caught up in the subject of personnel
Playing and acting, and slaving and bathing ourselves
Who lies and who tries to come over everyone
Painting a picture to show everyone in the world
Fearing is natural
New names and faces can bring
Build ups and barriers hiding behind everything
Who lies and who tries to come over everyone
Painting a picture to show everyone in the world.
12 Earwigs to Eternity (01:21)
Oh, four years long
And oh, what a song to hear, my dear
Four long years
Now we start to hear a whisper
Alice Cooper
All of the time we have
All of the time we had you
All of the time we have
All of the time we have
We are throwing all of our hands so high
You out there
[two voices at the same time]
Singing (playing) ditties (lovely) beautiful song (what a little song)
for you to be aware
Oh what a time we have
All of the time we have you
Oh what a time we have
All of the time we have
All of the time we have you
You're the one you're looking for
Let me in, let me in
Who's there, who's there, who's there
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