ALICE COOPER: ​ALONG CAME A SPIDER BY DAVID OWAIN HUGHES

I’m ashamed to say that I discovered Alice Cooper much later in life… Still, better later than never, right? By the time I figured out what the lanky, make-up-wearing weirdo – who I’d seen appear at WrestleMania III alongside Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts on shitty VHS – was all about, he’d already produced studio album number twenty-one: Brutal Planet. And what a pleasurably twisted, fucked-up ride that one is, my fellow sickies.

Going back to WWF (or WWE because nobody around here wants to get fucking sued): I was a massive LOD and Demolition fan, suggesting I had a thing for men in make-up as a wee lad. I guess some things never change… Worrying? Nah, not at all – it was a goddamn majestic time to be alive. The point being, I was captivated by Alice even though I’d only seen him for the briefest of moments with his gigantic snake and moody, creeping presence around the squared circle. I thought, Who is that wrestler?

Yep, I was clueless, never taking much notice. Hell, I was a massive Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives fan and never knew it was Alice who’d sung ‘Man Behind the Mask’, ‘Teenage Frankenstein’ and ‘Hard Rock Summer’ until I was old enough to know better. What can I say? I was a horror film freak. Music did nothing for me back then. Also, I’d like to point out, being a huge Jason fan helps reiterate that I had a thing for a man covering his face/identity… Don’t you dare fucking judge me!

Besides, it’s the year 2018 – I can like, do and be whatever I want, boys, which is the strong silent type…

All joking aside, it wouldn’t be until many years after WrestleMania III that I finally got to appreciate the theatrical rock legend on a much greater, deeper level, even though the likes of ‘Poison’ and ‘School’s Out’ had assaulted my ears in my later teenage years. I dug the hits and music in general, but it just didn’t really click with me until Meat Loaf entered my life, finally changing the way I looked at songs/words/lyrics. I also found his album covers thought-provoking. They fed my imagination, which was heavily geared towards horror. The artwork found on the inside of Bat Out of Hell 2: Back into Hell’s booklet is still among some of my favourite, alongside a lot of Manowar’s stuff.

From Meat stemmed other musical interests: Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, W.A.S.P. and many others, all of whom seemed to host horror elements in their songs, band mascot, appearances or album cover designs. I was hooked, and soon devoured music like film, but it was with Alice I fell in love, because it was he who played on the horror genre the most – which takes me back to the concept of a person hiding their true self behind make-up/mask. It fascinates me, and I find it cool as fuck.

Behind the running mascara and black lines around the eyes and mouth, a mouth I often think of as filled with razor-sharp teeth, is a man – Vincent Collier Furnier – who plays the part of a nutcase named Alice Cooper well. And this is exactly what we get with Cooper’s Along Came a Spider. This is an album that follows the life and mission of a serial killer by the name of Spider, whose identity is hidden until the end of the CD. And what a twist it is for all Cooper fans!

The album’s theme, setup and outcome all help invoke the classic stalk-and-slash films of a great era long past, with sly nods to the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy and Robert Bloch’s classic novel Pyscho’s main character Norman Bates. And, like Cooper, and indeed Spider, Bundy and Bates hid behind/acted out different personas to achieve their murderess goals.

The first track, ‘I Know Where you Live’, which kicks in after a short commentary by a female speaking about Spider’s diary, plans and downfall, is probably, for me, the strongest song on the album. It’s also the most eerie and compelling of listens, and immediately engrosses you in a dark, fucked-up world of death and uncertainty – a world only Alice Cooper can build. A bold statement? Not at all. The man has decades of turning out such bleak classic tunes as ‘Dead Babies’, ‘I Love the Dead’, ‘Raped and Freezin’’ and ‘Wicked Young Man’, along with a whole host of others to boast of that comprise wickedly dark humour.

In other words, dears, he knows his shit!

He’s been doing this a long time, and it isn’t a wonder why he’s the grandmaster of lyrical horror that helps you envision the terror – it almost bleeds through the speakers. Alice Cooper isn’t just a genius in his own rights when it comes to making music, he’s a behemoth of talent, and you’ll either get it/him or you won’t. And if you don’t, where in the fuck is your sense of humour?! He’s not a one-trick

pony, either, with his horror, humour and absurdness. Cooper has created stunning ballads, thought-provoking tunes regarding politics and hits driven by teenage angst and the destruction of the system. He’s not afraid to poke fun of himself – or America, either.

The next three tracks – ‘Vengeance is Mine’, ‘Wake the Dead’ (featuring Ozzy) and ‘Catch Me if You Can’ – help move the dark, twisted story of Spider and his debauched acts along at a heart-pounding, blood-soaked pace, not letting the listener feel safe for a moment. The latter of the songs, I assume, is Spider mocking the police – something many serial killers are known to do, like the infamous B.T.K., who, to this day, still mocks the press from his cell.

Two more cool-as-ice tracks slip in like a knife between the ribs in the form of ‘(In Touch With Your) Feminine Side’ and ‘Wrapped in Silk’, which is a cracker of a song, before Cooper hits the listener off-kilter with a powerful ballad regarding Spider’s undoing in ‘Killed by Love’. The poor, hapless killer falls for his last victim, who escapes him and is talked about two tunes later in ‘The One That Got Away’. Before this, we have ‘I’m Hungry’, which takes us back to the grittiness.

Cooper finishes the album off song-wise with another calm offering in the shape of ‘Salvation’, where Spider is looking for redemption. Not a hope in hell, you sick, twisted fuck!

And just when you think the terror is over, Cooper signs off with the internal thoughts of Spider, who unveils his identity as the one and only… Now that would be telling, right? I know, I’m a tease – all the boys tell me.

It’s definitely an album that packs a serious punch, and ranks among Cooper’s more dark offerings, sitting alongside such delights as Welcome to my Nightmare and From the Inside. He followed up with some great stuff after Along Came a Spider too, but I hope he goes back and records a sequel as initially planned.
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Still, I can’t – and won’t – complain. I eat up everything he produces.
Stay scary, people.
 

Bio:
David Owain Hughes is a horror freak! He grew up on ninja, pirate and horror movies from the age of five, which helped rapidly instil in him a vivid imagination. When he grows up, he wishes to be a serial killer with a part-time job in women’s lingerie…He’s had multiple short stories published in various online magazines and anthologies, along with articles, reviews and interviews. He’s written for This Is Horror, Blood Magazine, and Horror Geeks Magazine. He’s the author of the popular novels “Walled In” (2014), "Wind-Up Toy" (2016), “Man-Eating F*cks” (2016), and “The Rack & Cue” (2017) along with his short story collections “White Walls and Straitjackets” (2015) and "Choice Cuts" (2015). He’s also written three novellas – “Granville” (2016), “Wind-Up Toy: Broken Plaything & Chaos Rising” (2016).

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