New Song: The Original Alice Cooper Band Reunite For “Black Mamba” With New LP On The Way

I guess I’ve been a little distracted of late and it’s been almost a week since the newly reunited, original Alice Cooper band  – not the singer Vincent Furnier who changed his name to Alice Cooper – dropped their first single, “Black Mamba,” from the upcoming album The Revenge Of Alice Cooper. I’m not gonna lie, I got goosebumps when listening to this 70s rock throwback. This reunion is going to be something special, I can feel it in my rock n roll bones.

Alice Cooper, the band, was really five guys. It was Vincent Furnier, who we all now know as Alice Cooper on vocals; Glen Buxton on lead guitar; Michael Bruce on guitar/keyboards; Dennis Dunaway on bass; and finally Neal Smith on drums. They broke up after 1973’s Muscle Of Love but prior to that they had released a series of seminal 70s hard rock masterworks: Love It To Death (1971), Killer (1971), School’s Out (1972), and Billion Dollar Babies (1973). After the breakup, Vincent, who had changed his name, carried on as a solo act as Alice Cooper. His first solo album was the iconic Welcome To My Nightmare (1975) which is a great album but I always thought he lost something special when the band split. Sadly, Glen Buxton passed in 1997 but apparently they resurrected a few of his riffs for the new album, due in July.

These guys pick up right where they left off. It’s like it’s 1974 and they’ve just come off tour from Muscle Of Love and they recorded this song. Alice Cooper was always known for their theatrics and “shock rock” songs. These guys focused on dark themes like murder, necrophilia, and other horrible stuff. Their songs would be the perfect soundtrack to any murder show they have on the ID network.

“Black Mamba” takes up that mantle with fine aplomb. The track starts with Alice speaking, setting the tone. He seems to be saying, he’s actually the titular snake, waiting, tangled in the sheets to crawl up the victim’s leg and “bite.” Then the band kicks in and it’s buckle your seat belt time. It’s heavy riff rock but there’s a funky, wah wah thing that just drew me in. The chorus of just “Yah, yah’s” sounds like a menacing choir from some dark ritual. This is a great Alice Cooper song. In a situation where expectations have to be running high with the Alice Cooper faithful, these guys just delivered. I can not wait for this album. When Alice says, “You’ve got nothing to fear,” don’t believe him…

Here’s the song:

These guys have such a great chemistry. I love the muted guitar solo, it fits the song. The rhythm section and the wah wah style guitar just create the perfect menacing backdrop. I’ve liked a lot of what Alice has done solo over the years, but I love this stuff. I can’t wait to crank this up loud to scare the neighbors. This might be my new summer jam this year! Where did I put that eye makeup?

Crank this one up loud… new music is finally coming! Cheers!