Review: Alice Cooper (The Original Line Up) Release ‘The Revenge Of Alice Cooper’ – A Rocking Reunion 52 Years In The Making

Alice Cooper – the original band, not the singer of the same name – have released their first new album together in 52 years, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper. There have been a few partial reunions but this is the first time these high school buddies from Phoenix, Alice Cooper (aka Vincent Furnier, vocals), Michael Bruce (guitar), Dennis Dunaway (bass) and Neal Smith (drums) have reunited for a full album. The only member missing is original lead guitarist Glen Buxton who passed away in 1997 at the tender age of 49. But Glen isn’t completely gone, he’d recorded some riffs that they included on this album. So the Alice Cooper getting their “revenge” here is the original lineup. To augment the original lineup to cover Glen’s absent lead guitar, Gyasi Heus and Rick Tedesco step in to play lead. And, unbeknownst to me when I wrote my review of the first single, “Black Mamba,” Robbie Krieger of the Doors played some lead on that song. I also mistakenly thought the titular Black Mamba from that song was a snake but apparently it’s a spider… proving my grasp of the animal kingdom is still relatively weak…or perhaps better said, it appears I don’t know “who’s who in the zoo.” This album couldn’t come at a better time on the heels of the sad news that we lost Ozzy this week. Nothing soothes like rock n roll.

It’s hard to overstate how big the original band Alice Cooper was in the first half of the 70s. It was their third album that like so many other bands, broke them wide, Love It To Death (1971). Record companies just don’t have the patience to stick with a band through three albums any more… but I digress. They followed that up with a string of fabulous, commercially successful albums, Killer (also 1971), Schools Out (1972) which of course had our “we hate school” anthem in the title track, and then their biggest album 1973‘s Billion Dollar Babies. I love that last one, Hell, I love all of those albums. When I was in high school, rather than try to buy all four of those records (I didn’t have the bread) I settled for one of those single-disc greatest hits albums, Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits, which had a depiction of the band as 30’s style gangsters on the cover. It wasn’t until later I picked up all those great early 70s albums and they made me a huge Alice fan. I was actually inspired to re-investigate Alice Cooper after he guested on the GnR album Use Your Illusions on “The Garden.”

That original Alice Cooper band was the type of artist or band that scared your parents. They were officially described as “shock rock” and Cooper (the singer) has been described as the “Godfather of Shock Rock.” Their on stage theatrics, which often influenced their music, was the thing of legend. Alice would carry a boa constrictor onto the stage. They had a guillotine on stage and would enact a “beheading” of Alice at each show. Cooper wore that spooky eye makeup. They may have been described as “shock rock” but they were such a fabulous blend. They took basic garage rock, glam rock, shock rock and arena rock and put it all in a blender… probably with a frog… and turned it into something really special. They could do just about everything including stabs at cabaret… These guys sang about every taboo subject you can think of: necrophilia, murder, madness and everything else frightening you can imagine. Like Ozzy, Alice was like that cool uncle who would say (or in this case, sing) the most outrageous shit at the Thanksgiving table just to get a rise out of grandpa.

The Alice Cooper band was voted biggest rock band in the world after Billion Dollar Babies. Alice Cooper had been diving deep into concept albums and they decided to follow up Billion Dollar with a more conventional, garage rock type album. In late 1973 they released Muscle Of Love – a great album but with less conventional “hits” – and it would prove to be their final record as a band. After extensive touring, they realized both Alice and Glen were struggling with those “rock n roll demons” and decided to take a year off. I know several of the members decided to do solo albums. Nobody really asked Alice if he was going to do a solo album. At the urging of their manager he quietly changed his name legally, from Vincent Furnier to Alice Cooper so if the band failed to get together again he’d own the name… shrewd shit from a drunk 70s rocker. These guys were all high school chums so nobody sued Cooper which is astounding. While the other guy’s solo stuff turfed, Alice released Welcome To My Nightmare and launched an elaborate tour. That was the end of Alice Cooper, the band. The other guys tried to tour as the Billion Dollar Babies, but the train had left the station, so to speak.

But now, after 52 years, the original Alice Cooper has come roaring back with a vengeance. This is a great rock n roll album that has me feelin’ 1975 and I want to drink Jack Daniels straight out of the bottle with a Budweiser chaser even though I was still in grade school in 1975. Nobody rock n rolls like this any more. To put the cherry on top, they brought in Bob Ezrin, who produced all of their “classic” albums, to produce. The album opens with the aforementioned “Black Mamba” and it’s wonderful. “The Wild Ones” is a harder/faster garage rock tune that just kicks your ass. “Up All Night” is a sexual bravado boast that you don’t often hear any more in music. It’s a grinding rock song. “Kill The Flies” is a patented Alice Cooper singing about insanity song. There is so much to love here, so many highlights. “One Night Stand” is another slinky rocker. I love “Blood On The Sun” a mini-epic of a rock song that clocks in at over 6 minutes.

“Crap That Gets In The Way Of  Your Dreams” is a pure garage rock track with Alice in full snarling vocals mode. It’s fabulous. The hard rock continues on “Famous Faces” and “Money Screams.” On the former he sings, “you’re such a lush, and you cry cause you got it rough…” Such delicious disdain. On the latter Alice drops the wisdom that “Money doesn’t talk, it screams.” Oligarchs will certainly agree. “What A Syd” is a wonderful, campy change of direction into a cabaret, night club thing which imagines Alice Cooper as the lounge band in a groovy bar in Hell to my ears. The chorus has Alice channeling his inner Cab Calloway, and I love it. They do surprise me – in a very good way – with a couple of bluesy numbers “Intergalactic Vagabond Blues” (and how do you not love that title), and “Ain’t Done Wrong.” Cooper plays great harmonica on both those tunes. The album ends on the wonderful ballad, “See You On The Other Side,” which has even more resonance when you think it’s probably about Glen Buxton.

This is fabulous, old school rock n roll. What elevates this album is the sheer chemistry these guys have playing together. They are clearly having a fabulous time. This is the best thing I’ve heard from Alice Cooper since 2011’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare (the sequel to his debut solo album), or possibly since 1989’s Trash but then I’m no Alice Cooper deep expert. This is clearly one of the best rock albums of 2025. Every fan of rock n roll who likes to hold their lighter (er, I mean phone now) in the air and sway is gonna love this album.

“I’ll see you on the other side…and we’ll rock the night away… see you there…” Cheers!