 Forgive me if this is a somewhat rambling and reminiscent article. What you have in me is an old man with a long fucking memory, too much weed on his hands, and a deep and abiding love of the great Alice Cooper so I may wax nostalgic from time to time. Think about this for a minute before I get rolling: in 1969 an unknown group called The Alice Cooper Band, formerly The Spiders, released their first sleaze nouveau rock album, Pretties For You. Fifty. Fucking. Years. Yep. So it’s kind of remarkable to me that after all these years, and all the albums he’s released since then, this 70 year old rocker is not only still producing and releasing albums, he’s also managed to stay somewhat relevant. And while that’s largely because of the music, it’s also because of the man himself. Musician, superstar, rock and roll icon that he is, what really keeps him valid to this day are his mesmerizing live performances. With an almost vaudevillian panache and a flair for the absurd, in both his music and his shows, Alice draws you in with his stories. Many of his albums tell relational stories, as do his individual songs, but nowhere is this more evident than it is in his live concerts. He draws you in with a hook, creates a little conflict, maybe eases up a little to keep the pacing under control, then piles on story after interconnected story until he reaches his denouement in a cacophonous crescendo of light and sound. And for those of us who have been fortunate enough to see him live, it’s easy to visualize and vicariously experience those performances when listening to his albums. The fairly vast lexicon of this rock and roll legend consists largely of music designed as love songs to his extremely devoted fans, effectively riffing on all the things he’s done before while also managing to evolve. He’s expand into an ever changing audience and grown with them, endeavoring to keep his former following dedicated while drawing new devotees into his dark and deadly embrace. He’s a rock and roll horror maestro, a glam rocker, pop singer, metalhead who appeals to a vast and diverse array of demographics and that is, to my thinking, exactly what keeps him relevant. What does all this have to do with this album that was in many ways 48 years in the making? Well, by virtue of comparison, where his previous works were largely designed to keep old fans while gaining new ones, those proverbial love songs I wrote of, Paranormal seems like more of a tribute to his own remarkable career, not to mention classic rock as a whole. With notable guest appearances from the original classic lineup of the Alice Cooper Band, the great Billy Gibbons, and Roger Glover of Deep Purple fame, this album held a lot of promise for the masses of fans who just can’t get enough of the Dark Lord. But did it deliver? Or did it suck? Well, I find myself at least slightly surprised that I’m sitting here right now to tell you it didn’t suck, not at all. In fact, it’s pretty damned good and I would recommend it to newcomers and dedicated fans alike. A straight up hard rock album for the most part, this record is a departure from his previous album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare and many of his other works in that it isn’t a themed piece. It doesn’t tell a cohesive story or adhere to a specific trope, but rather chooses to just rock your ass off. And while the titular song fell flat for me, seeming like it could have been performed by Casper the Friendly Ghost, the rest are all—to this 54 year old rocker—pretty fucking representative of one of the most iconic careers in rock and roll history. As track two, “Dead Flies,” commences this record really starts to kick ass, paying stellar homage to greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd (reference “The Sound of A,” a great song that is almost certainly homage to that band) and, well, the Alice Cooper Band itself. There are three songs on this disk that I anticipated more than any other. They are: “Genuine American Girl,” performed by the surviving members of the classic ACB lineup and hearkening back to the “Schools Out” and “Billion Dollar Babies” era; “You and All Your Friends” another ACB helmed song that felt like what white bread would sound like; and “Fallen In Love,” a song that features the great Billy Gibbons on guitar and that unsurprisingly contains the best string work on the record and easily the best solo. Standout songs for me are “Dead Flies,” featuring Coopers signature growling voice, “Rats,” and “Genuine American Girl,” a hilarious number about a cross dressing dude that I love mostly because of the lines: “I’m only 30 out of 50 shades of grey” and “My mama says the world’s an oyster and I’m the pearl.” This album has something for everyone and, while it doesn’t come close to such classics as Billion Dollar Babies, it does come highly recommended from Shane for just good, fun, listening enjoyment. In addition to the studio fare and the two ACB tracks, which are on a separate disc because, hey, it’s Alice, the work also contains six live bonus tracks of classic Cooper tunes that are well worth your attention too. When it comes to singing, Alice Cooper hasn’t lost a step, retaining the use of his full vocal range and still able at 70 to grind out his trademark growl or regale you with that smooth, sweet voice he typically reserves for songs like “You & Me.” And when it comes to songwriting, while it couldn’t be said that he’s maintained the same level as the works he’s famous for, he can still pen a worthy song and, with the few exceptions I’ve mentioned, there isn’t a song on this album that isn’t worth of a listen. All in all, Alice Cooper’s Paranormal is pretty fucking good.  Shane Douglas Keene is a powerhouse of reviewing and blogging, owner of Shotgun Logic and co owner of Ink Heist, Shane is one of the strongest voices in the review community and a person i am proud to call a brother  
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