Paranormal

The best thing about Paranormal is that it sounds exactly like an Alice Cooper album. [28 Jul 2017, p.50]

Tremendous fun throughout. [Sep 2017, p.87]

Put together in one tidy and creepy package, Paranormal does the near-impossible: offering something of worth for fans of his ‘70s output, those folks that clued in once Alice popped up in Wayne’s World and those newly minted fans who were welcomed to his nightmare on his recent run of tour dates. There’s almost no other rockers of Alice’s vintage that could pull of such a feat.

The result is a loose affair true to his legacy as a golf-club-wielding villain with a dark sense of humor.

Paranormal isn't the return to form one might have hoped for, but it's no embarrassment either, and Cooper appears to be having a grand time while giving his fans a good show for their dollar.

Paranormal, Cooper's first studio album since 2011's Welcome 2 My Nightmare, is a welcome surprise. [Jul-Sep 2017, p.55]

For anyone who thinks Cooper's music has lost its edge, Paranormal is a reminder that loud, lumbering rock never goes out of style.

Taken as a whole, it’s a pretty patchwork affair, but so are all Alice Cooper albums, even the great ones. And while this isn’t one of the great ones, it also doesn’t sound like the work of a washed-up has-been who’s out of time and ideas.

There’s a sense of sheer urgency in Cooper’s voice as he describes an apocalyptic city scene on Fireball; Genuine American Girl dabbles in smart gender politics and Fallen in Love is a tight throwback to classic blues laments. However, more shiny than screwball, it doesn’t offer the same treasure you might well find lurking in Cooper’s attic.

Musically, you know what to expect when Cooper and producer Bob Ezrin join forces: metal turmoil, churning beats and slashing guitar flourishes, letting up only for Ezrin to indulge his Pink Floyd heritage with the ponderous “The Sound Of A”, with its apt message, “Meaningless noise is everybody’s toys”. Quite.

They aren’t content to simply let Cooper’s past speak for itself. Rather they lard the album with references to his best-known songs and try to get his backing band to often ape the instincts of the original Alice Cooper Band. ... The album is, at least, bookended by some strong material.

While they’re [Genuine American Girl and You And All Of Your Friends] two of the album's best songs, they, like the previous ten tracks, suffer from not just overproduction and out-of-date musical aesthetics, but also a half-hearted attempt to assert something pure about the rock of yore.