{"id":6974,"date":"2008-07-29T00:00:23","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=6974"},"modified":"2013-06-01T13:56:40","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T13:56:40","slug":"album-review-alice-cooper-along-came-a-spider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-alice-cooper-along-came-a-spider\/","title":{"rendered":"ALICE COOPER – Along Came A Spider (2008) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALICE COOPER
Along Came A Spider<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSteamhammer (2008)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Rock \u2019n\u2019 roll royalty Alice Cooper returns with his 25th album, Along Came A Spider<\/em>, and is his first album since a duo of poorly produced, distressingly unsuccessful albums, entitled Dirty Diamonds<\/em> (2005) and The Eyes of Alice Cooper<\/em> (2003) respectfully.<\/p>\n

Along Came A Spider<\/em> re-establishes Cooper as shock rock\u2019s elder statesman… and still arguably the genre\u2019s best. Cooper again brings a disturbed character to life through theatrics, relatable lyrics and great songwriting; the latter being the element that makes him the preeminent shock rocker of the last 50 years. <\/p>\n

Along Came A Spider<\/em> is a concept album based on an unpublished short story penned by Cooper himself. The story revolves around a spider obsessed, insane, serial killer appropriately named \u201cSpider\u201d. The on-the-loose killer brings his obsessions to life by claiming eight victims and taking a leg from each. He also enjoys wrapping his victims in silk, as does a spider. Far from being the perfect mate, Spider\u2019s games are retold in classic Cooper style bringing to mind his other concept albums rather quickly. While lyrically the album is closer to Welcome To My Nightmare<\/em> (1975) than Cooper has come in a long, long time, musically it is a cross between the rock \/ hard rock edge of The Last Temptation<\/em> (1994) and the post-apocalyptic heaviness of Brutal Planet<\/em> (2000). <\/p>\n

Although the album gets off to a slow start with the introductory spoken word piece and the clunky \u2018Vengeance Is Mine\u2019, which is reminiscent of the not-so-great moments that dominated Dragontown<\/em> (2001), the album quickly recovers.<\/p>\n

The classic rock stylings of \u2018Wake The Dead\u2019 and \u2018I\u2019m Hungry\u2019 (which includes a solo that rivals the one in \u2018Billion Dollar Babies\u2019) and the instantly-recognizable-as-Alice Cooper \u2018Wrapped In Silk\u2019 up the ante rather quickly, boldly declaring to all who hear that Cooper has much left to say. The power ballad \u2018Salvation\u2019 hits hard as well, taking the story to unexpected places and raising a number of interesting moral questions in the process. This is a song that could easily have been on the (or perhaps left off of) The Last Temptation<\/em> album.<\/p>\n

\u2018Killed By Love\u2019 and \u2018Catch Me If You Can\u2019 are the only really mediocre moments, aside from the aforementioned \u2018Vengeance Is Mine\u2019 of course, but they are a 100 times better than anything from the last two albums. <\/p>\n

What is truly impressive here is how Cooper (who is now 60 years young) remains relevant in a music scene that is spinning out of control. He is undeniable proof that great songwriting and great lyrical ideas \/ concepts \/ themes still count if you want to create an album that won\u2019t be shelved in six months by the listener. It\u2019s not Welcome To My Nightmare<\/em> or Billion Dollar Babies<\/em> (1973), it\u2019s not even Trash<\/em> (1989), but it does rank alongside fan favourites The Last Temptation<\/em> and Brutal Planet<\/em> quite easily and is enjoyable from start to finish. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALICE COOPERAlong Came A Spider Steamhammer (2008)Rating: 7\/10 Rock \u2019n\u2019 roll royalty Alice Cooper returns with his 25th album, Along Came A Spider, and is his first album since a duo of poorly produced, distressingly unsuccessful albums, entitled Dirty Diamonds (2005) and The Eyes of Alice Cooper (2003) respectfully. Along Came A Spider re-establishes Cooper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-alice-cooper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11951,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974\/revisions\/11951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}