ALICE COOPER – Paranormal [Limited Box Set] (2017) retail

Shock rock master ALICE COOPER new album “Paranormal” will be released tomorrow July 28. Apart from a T-shirt, this Limited Box Set includes a bonus disc with 2 new songs written & performed by The Original Alice Cooper Band plus carefully selected live recordings of Alice’s classics.

Cooper worked with longtime producer Bob Ezrin on “Paranormal”, and as previously reported, rounded up an assortment of famous friends to chip in, including U2’s drummer Larry Mullen Jr., ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Deep Purple’s Roger Glover.
Reflecting on the album’s title, Cooper said, “This is not a normal Alice record. Bob and I decided, no theme this time — we’re gonna make a record of things that just get us off, things that we like. And it might go in a lot of directions.”

“Paranormal” opens with its title track and a continuous drum roll of an introduction with bursts of guitar pave way to the introduction of Cooper’s familiar vocal, albeit slightly more subdued and tame than some of his past musical output. Some criticism has been aimed at the man himself for the quality of his voice in recent years: circumstances that cannot be escaped due to naturally aging.

Here, however, Cooper’s voice sounds as good as it ever has, despite adopting a softer approach of course in comparison to what has come before it.
‘Dead Flies’ immediately follows as the second of the album’s tracks, and again is able to utilize cleverly morbid lyricism and incorporate it into melodic hard rock, which could be interpreted as Alice Cooper’s biggest talent as a musician and a songwriter.

‘Fireball’ leads the listener even further down into the album’s musical output, and again this song manages to retain the band’s famous style while still discovering new avenues in order to stand on its own and have its creative prowess be viewed clearly.
‘Paranoiac Personality’ start out quite psychedelic in its immediate moments, it soon bursts into the familiar classic rock mood that Copper has become known for.
‘Fallen in Love’ mark the record’s halfway mark, possibly deceiving you into thinking that it is a ballad, but the track is just another great song on an album full of great songs so far.

‘Dynamite Road’ races from its opening moments all the way to its conclusion with words of excess, debauchery, violence, criminality and everything else that you would expect from the heavy metal scene of the 1970s and 1980s. With blistering musicianship and one of Cooper’s best vocal performances perhaps on the entire album, this is a highlight and a song you should definitely enjoy.

‘Holy Water’ accurately presents the showmanship of Alice Cooper as one of the greatest and most influential entertainers in the history of the music business, and this song is an obvious statement of intent that he desires to retain that position for years to come.
The inclusion of instruments that are not typical of this kind of music and the ability to make them work alongside the traditional guitar/bass/drum set-up again is evidence of the talent of the Alice Cooper band. This song just reeks of the sort of atmosphere that makes classic rock brilliant, making it one of the album’s best.

‘Rats’ and ‘The Sound of A’ bring ‘Paranormal’ to an end, featuring the same sort of old-school rock-driven style (under a number of different guises, be that fast-paced or more melodic and softer) that has made the songs before them on this album so musically entertaining.
It’s safe to say that if you’ve enjoyed everything up to this point, then these last two songs will definitely satisfy your appetite for well-produced classic rock music.

The extra disc delivers two delicious surprises; ‘Genuine American Girl’ and ‘You and All of Your Friends’, 2 new songs written & performed by The Original Alice Cooper Band: Cooper, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith and Michael Bruce.
And you have here very well recorded live versions of ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’, ‘Billion Dollar Babies’, ‘School’s Out’ and more.

The legend of Alice Cooper as a musical force especially when it comes to rock music cannot be overstated, and this album genuinely succeeds in showing why still to this day he and his band is one of the best to have ever done it.
While not as instantly classic as the records he produced in his golden era decades back, ‘Paranormal’ should in years to come be recognized as one of Alice’s greatest efforts, and is an album that demands your attention.
Highly Recommended

CD 1 : Paranormal
01 – Paranormal (feat. Roger Glover)
02 – Dead Flies
03 – Fireball
04 – Paranoiac Personality
05 – Fallen In Love (feat. Billy Gibbons)
06 – Dynamite Road
07 – Private Public Breakdown
08 – Holy Water
09 – Rats
10 – The Sound of A

CD 2 : Bonus Disc
New songs written & performed by
The Original Alice Cooper Band:
01 – Genuine American Girl
02 – You and All of Your Friends
Live In Columbus:
03 – No More Mr. Nice Guy
04 – Under My Wheels
05 – Billion Dollar Babies
06 – Feed My Frankenstein
07 – Only Women Bleed
08 – School’s Out

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www.amazon.co.uk/Paranormal-Alice-Cooper/dp/B071F48TJG
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