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LSKelly writes:

4of 5 Stars

Having not released a studio album since 1994 (The Last Temptation), Alice Cooper’s releases have since consisted of both a live album (“A Fistful of Alice,” 1997) and a box-set collection (“The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper,” 1999), thus leaving most of us with the impression that the 30+ year career of Alice Cooper had, at long last, come to its end. Then just when you thought it was all over, almost out of nowhere comes “Brutal Planet.”

So what is Brutal Planet you may ask? Brutal Planet, a-la Cooper, is a sinkhole of a violent world gone bad (Brutal Planet), populated by homicidal neo-Nazi skinheads (Wicked Young Man) and robotic nine-to-fivers drearily plodding through life (Sanctuary) always alert for the whack-job ready to put a bullet in their head for being the slightest bit different (Blow Me a Kiss). As some gorge themselves into sickening obesity while others go to bed hungry at night (Eat Some More), in Alice’s horrific world of genocide as a pastime (Pick up the Bones) that’s enough to make anyone a candidate for a lifetime of Prozac (Pessi-Mystic), these folks will instantly sell their souls in a New York second to get ahead (Gimme), fly into rages over the smallest of inconveniences (It’s the Little Things), then head home to finish off the day by giving the wife a well-deserved beating (Take It Like a Woman) in order to brace themselves up for drudging through yet another day, as yet another nameless, faceless entity among entities (Cold Machines).

Charming.

“Brutal Planet” features, with one forgettable exception, an absolute void of anything resembling musical variety. Pound-pound-pound is the order of the day. Furthermore, Alice’s usual lyrical wit, while still there, now includes blatantly shocking lyrics you will not want to be overheard singing along to (“I got every kind of chemical pumpin' through my head; I read ‘Mein Kampf’ daily just to keep my hatred fed” from “Wicked Young Man” comes instantly to mind). Lastly, the songs tend to follow a similar formula of verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Yet strangely enough, it’s precisely this lack of variety and subtlety which, when combined with the theme material at hand, transforms “Brutal Planet” into Alice Cooper’s most consistent thematic release. If you let it, “Brutal Planet” works.

As for the high and low points of the album, a lot depends on what type of Alice Cooper fan you are.If you’ve remained an Alice Cooper fan primarily because he could put together a good theme album, and are furthermore open to the idea of the Founding Father of Shock Rock screaming rant after rant behind overdriven power-chords that would make Megadeth proud, then you will find “Brutal Planet” to be mostly on the upside, with one exception. The tenth track, “Take it Like a Woman,” is the type of ballad Alice Cooper feels he must include on every album, dating back to the “Only Women Bleed/I Never Cry/You and Me” trilogy of hit singles of days gone past. Aside from the song’s rather gruesome subject matter, it is otherwise totally out-of-place on this album. When after hearing 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated, overdriven noise, the piano opening this ballad is guaranteed to leave you sitting there wondering “where did THAT come from, and speaking of ballads, what ever happened to Dwight Fry?”

In summary, Alice Cooper’s “Brutal Planet” leaves no room for middle ground. You’ll either Love It to Death, or consider it Trash, puns intended.

Nov 22, 2006 13:15:18