01. Brutal Planet [04:40]
02. Wicked Young Man [03:50]
03. Sanctuary [04:00]
04. Blow Me A Kiss [03:18]
05. Eat Some More [04:36]
06. Pick Up The Bones [05:14]
07. Pessi-mystic [04:56]
08. Gimme [04:46]
09. It’s The Little Things [04:11]
10. Take It Like A Woman [04:12]
11. Cold Machines [04:14]
12. Can’t Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me [04:09]

Alice Cooper – Vocals
Ryan Roxie – Guitar
Phil X – Guitar
Eric Singer – Drums
Bob Marlette – Bass, Keyboards

Alice Cooper began the 21st century by releasing his 21st studio album, Brutal Planet. Since his very first record with the Alice Cooper band, 1969's Pretties For You, Alice the man has evolved and experimented and free-wheeled all over the musical spectrum. Alice has adopted many personae over the years, but the side of himself he presented on this album is unlike any he had ever shown before. He was always one of the most powerful influences on heavy metal, but on this album he fully embraces it, shows the kids how it's done, and becomes truly brutal.

This album is Alice's heaviest to date, and is in very much the same vein as two of his own disciples, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. Brutal Planet feels cold and industrial; the guitars are heavy and forceful, the drums mechanical and driving, the vocals pained and vindictive. Songs like the title track, "Blow Me A Kiss," and "Pick Up The Bones" are creepy and powerful, the sort of thing you might expect to hear in a horror movie. Brutal Planet is infected with a dismal realism, a grim seriousness that was not present in Alice's previous albums. Alice Cooper used to be a somewhat comical villain; he was a vaudevillian, a cartoon character, just as cheesy as he was evil. Not anymore. Brutal Planet's Alice is deadly and vicious. He doesn't sing about school being out, he sings about shooting it up. No more "No More Mr. Nice Guy"; he left that behind long ago and is currently conducting a holocaust.

Lyrically, Brutal Planet is about as jarring and sinister as it gets with Alice. "Wicked Young Man" sounds like it was written for A Clockwork Orange, "Eat Some More" for Se7en, and "Brutal Planet" as a condemnation of the entire human race. "Dead Babies" is practically camp next to these songs. More than a mere horror show, however, this album is a moral judgment of modern society, influenced by Cooper's Christianity and dressed up as another romp through the wicked and horrific hosted by his dastardly alter ego.

Brutal Planet has the sound of a man who left the garage a lifetime ago, casting the rock and roll guitars and 1970s mentality by the wayside. This is not your father's Alice Cooper. Actually, my father loves this album, but it's just a figure of speech. This is a new breed of Alice. A heavy, destructive, brutal Alice Cooper. This is easily his best album so far, solo or otherwise. --- metalstorm.net

Dla nieszczęśników kojarzących Alice Coopera wyłącznie z płyty "Trash", "Brutal Planet" może być nie lada szokiem. Od pierwszego, tytułowego utworu album atakuje ciężkim brzmieniem nisko strojonych gitar. Jest to wprost rewelacyjne połączenie starych i nowych patentów hard rockowych. Jeśli podobały wam się najmocniejsze kawałki na "Ozzmosis" Ozzy'ego Osbourne'a (takie jak "My Jackyll Doesn't Hide" czy "Thunder Underground"), to pokochacie tę płytę. Jest świeża, dynamiczna, melodyjna (ale nigdy ponad miarę, jak to niestety było na "Trash") i - co tu dużo mówić - po prostu kopie, kopie, kopie...

Przy tym wszystkim, "Brutal Planet" zdaje się być najmroczniejszą płytą Alice'a w całej jego ponad trzydziestoletniej karierze. Para nie poszła w gwizdek i posępne brzmienie zostało wykorzystane należycie. Muzyce towarzyszą bowiem niezwykle ponure, dekadenckie teksty Alice'a. Nie znajdziemy tu typowych horrorów, które uczyniły go słynnym, tym razem grozy dostarcza rzeczywistość. Na przykład tekst "Pick Up The Bones" został zainspirowany sceną, którą Alice obejrzał w CNN - był to człowiek zbierający kości swoich bliskich na kosowskim pobojowisku. Ten pół-balladowy utwór, o atmosferze gęstej niczym smoła, należy zresztą do ciekawszych na płycie. Mało kto mógłby go zaśpiewać równie sugestywnie jak Alice. Z kolei "Eat Some More", muzycznie ewidentnie nawiązujący do starego Black Sabbath, opisuje marnotrawstwo zachodniej cywilizacji w zestawieniu z ludźmi umierającymi z głodu. Nie ma w tym wszystkim ani śladu nadziei, optymizmu, hippisowskich ideałów czy wezwania do walki o lepszy świat. Od początku do samego końca, Alice mówi nam, że wszyscy jesteśmy zgubieni ("We're spinning 'round on this ball of hate / There's no parole, there's no great escape / We're sentenced here until the end of days / And then, my brother, there's a price to pay").

Spójność stylistyczną płyty rozbija trochę przedostani kawałek - "Take it Like a Woman". Jest to jedyna ballada na "Brutal Planet" (bo "Pick Up The Bones" raczej trudno do tej kategorii zaliczyć). Niestety, podobnych utworów od czasu swego przeboju "Only Women Bleed", Alice nagrał kilka i przez to sprawia dość wtórne wrażenie. Całe szczęście, zostaje ono zatarte przez kończący płytę, futurystyczny "Cold Machines", roztaczający iście orwellowską wizję zniewolenia człowieka.

Wprawdzie do końca roku (a także i wieku, cóż się dziwić Cooperowi, że popadł w dekadenckie klimaty), zostało jeszcze kilka miesięcy, ale nie sądzę, by ktokolwiek mógł go jeszcze przebić. Dla mnie prawie na pewno będzie to płyta roku dwutysięcznego. Już dawno żaden album nie gościł u mnie w odtwarzaczu tak długo. Polecam. ---Rip, rockmetal.pl

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01 - It's Hot Tonight.
02 - Lace And Whiskey.
03 - Road Rats.
04 - Damned If You Do.
05 - You And Me.
06 - King Of The Silver Screen.
07 - Ubangi Stomp
08 - (No More) Love At Your Convenience
09 - I Never Wrote Those Songs
10 - My God

Bass – Prakash John, Tony Levin
Clarinet – Ernie Watts
Drums – Allan Schwartzberg, Jim Gordon
Guitar – Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter
Keyboards – Bob Ezrin, Jozef Chirowski
Percussion – Jimmy Maelen
Piano – Al Kooper, Alan MacMillan
Tenor Saxophone – Ernie Watts
Vocals – Dick Wagner, Jimmy Maelen, Julia Tillman Waters, Lorna Willard
The California Boys' Choir

As the rock & roll that made him famous began to grow stale, Alice Cooper found himself desperately trying to revive that fad with Lace and Whiskey. There are no shocking songs here -- just flat, dull melodies that sound like a bad combination of '50s rock & roll and classic '70s rock. One exception to the album might be the Top 20 hit "You and Me," but even this somewhat catchy ballad doesn't save the album from being a bore. Although it isn't as horrible as many critics have claimed it to be, Lace and Whiskey still fails to get anywhere beyond mediocrity. ---Barry Weber, AllMusic Review

This is one of those “Alice has started drinking too much” albums that I always assumed would be incredibly cheesy and spotty without ever listening to it fully. I already knew of “It’s Hot Tonight”, “You and Me” and “Road Rats” due to their inclusion on the Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper box set. “Road Rats” I never cared for (though the version on that box set is a remixed 1980 version), but I’ve always loved “It’s Hot Tonight and “You and Me”.

Too many session players to list for this album (which was but just know that leading the way is Alice, Bob Ezrin and guitarists Dick Wagner & Steve Hunter.

Lace and Whiskey is yet another semi-concept album with Alice debuting a brand-new character in the form of private investigator Maurice Escargot. While the whole thing comes off as very cheesy (and given that this album was inspired by showtunes and 1940s/1950s music, I’m sure that’s the point), I wouldn’t say it’s a spotty record. There’s a few duds like “Road Rats”, “King of the Silver Screen” & “Ubangi Stomp” but the rest is excellent, even if you might be able to consider most of them guilty pleasures.

“It’s Hot Tonight” is about nothing more than sex. I’m completely okay with that. “Lace and Whiskey” really hammers home the theme of being a private eye with a film noir style. A great vibe that Alice would similarly capture on the song “Dirty Diamonds” years later.

“You and Me” is Alice Cooper doing an easy listening ballad. Did the demon in the bottle make him do it or were Alice and producer Bob Ezrin looking for a big-time radio hit? Regardless, the song found itself charting at #9 on the Billboard charts as a single and the legacy continues because, as someone who used to work a day shift at Walgreens just a few years ago, I can tell you this song was played nearly every day before noon. It’s a great song but in the long run it probably did more damage than good as far as Cooper’s fanbase was concerned.

“(No More) Love at Your Convenience” is quite possibly my favorite track from this album. Such a guilty pleasure. Alice goes disco! “I Never Wrote Those Songs” is another easy listening ballad (complete with saxophone solo), but has a clever theme to it. “My God” in another fantastic piece that features a church organ.

Lace and Whiskey is definitely an oddball Alice album. He really went outside the box with this one and dropped the shock rock gimmick, but it’s a good effort for the most part and worth seeking out. ---Metal Misfit, metalexcess.wordpress.com

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1-1 	Paranormal 	4:11
1-2 	Dead Flies 	2:22
1-3 	Fireball 	4:49
1-4 	Paranoiac Personality 	3:11
1-5 	Fallen In Love 	3:33
1-6 	Dynamite Road 	2:43
1-7 	Private Public Breakdown 	3:26
1-8 	Holy Water 	3:08
1-9 	Rats 	2:38
1-10 	The Sound Of A 	4:06
Two New Songs Written And Performed By The Original Alice Cooper Band
2-1 	Genuine American Girl 	4:27
2-2 	You And All Of Your Friends 	2:42
Live In Columbus (OH), May 6, 2016
2-3 	No More Mr. Nice Guy 	3:10
2-4 	Under My Wheels 	2:56
2-5 	Billion Dollar Babies 	3:44
2-6 	Feed My Frankenstein 	5:02
2-7 	Only Women Bleed 	5:12
2-8 	School's Out 	6:10

Alice Cooper - Primary Artist, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Michael Bruce - Guitar
Demi Demaree - Vocals (Background)
Tommy Denander - Guitar
Nick Didkovsky - Guitar
Dennis Dunaway - Bass
Bob Ezrin - Keyboards, Organ, Sound Effects, Vocals (Background)
Chuck Garric - Bass, Vocals (Background)
Billy Gibbons - Guitar
Parker Gispert - Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Roger Glover - Bass
Tommy Henriksen - Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sound Effects, Vocals (Background)
Steve Hunter - Guitar
Larry Mullen, Jr. - Drums
Adrian Olmos - Horn
Johnny Reid - Vocals (Background)
Ryan Roxie - Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Jeremy Rubolino - Horn
Jimmie Lee Sloas - Bass
Neal Smith - Drums
Glen Sobel - Drums
Nita Strauss - Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Chris Traynor - Horn 

Some things never change -- the sky is blue, two plus two equals four, the sun rises in the east, and Alice Cooper will make albums where he sneers out spooky lyrics as long as he can draw breath. Cooper hadn't had anything resembling a hit since the mid-'90s, but the man clearly had no desire to retire, and though he was 69 years old when he released Paranormal in 2017, he still sounded admirably spry and hadn't lost his voice or his charisma. Paranormal was released not long after Cooper reunited with surviving members of the original Alice Cooper band for some surprise shows, and the advance word on the album had it that Cooper was going to write and record with them. While bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith pop up on a few tracks of Paranormal, the two songs they wrote with him, "Genuine American Girl" and "You and All of Your Friends," appear on Paranormal as bonus tracks, and anyone hoping for a blast of sleazy glory in the manner of School's Out or Killer will be a bit disappointed. (Then again, when the Coop brought a bunch of the original guys on board for 2011's Welcome 2 My Nightmare, no one noticed, so maybe the fans have faulty expectations.) While it features Dunaway, Smith, and producer Bob Ezrin (who was at the controls for Cooper's best '70s work), Paranormal more closely resembles Cooper's hair metal-flavored work of the '90s, though Ezrin has given this material a more up-to-date sheen. Thankfully, Paranormal is a livelier and more entertaining listen than Trash or Hey Stoopid, and while he aims for high spookiness on "Dead Flies," "The Sound of A," and the title track, he seems to be having more fun with wittier numbers like "Dynamite Road," "Private Public Breakdown," and "Fallen in Love" ("and I can't get up!"). The band delivers the goods with admirable precision and some honest enthusiasm, while the guests include Larry Mullen from U2, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and Roger Glover from Deep Purple (and who would've guessed that those guys would ever be on an album together, let alone with Alice Cooper?). Paranormal isn't the return to form one might have hoped for, but it's no embarrassment either, and Cooper appears to be having a grand time while giving his fans a good show for their dollar. ---Mark Deming, AllMusic Review

After the cavalcade of risks and fresh sounds that populated Welcome 2 My Nightmare, Alice Cooper decided to circle back around to regular, ol' rock'n'roll of the type that everyone can grasp immediately. I'll admit to some disappointment that Paranormal doesn't quite see Alice reinveinting himself for the umpteenth time, but with that said, this is a 27th album that is enjoyable and doesn't drag, so I'll take it.

"Dead Flies" and "Fireball" pick up the album with a fat, heavy, vaguely psychedelic blues-rock sound that Alice largely avoided back when bands like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep were hitting their stride, and one that, for this reason, doesn't feel like a return to roots so much as Alice simply trying on a new hat that's already quite old. That's not a knock, merely a curiosity, and I'd say "Fireball" is one of the highlights (no surprise that Dennis Dunaway receives primary writing credit). Paranormal mostly comprises like-minded nostalgia pieces: pounding, three-minute heavy rock tunes tempered in some measure of wry humor or raucous troublemaking. This album embraces a very comfortable sound for Alice; the songwriting follows from albums like Along Came A Spider and Dirty Diamonds, but with an even more polished and laidback production, taking Alice even further away from The Eyes Of Alice Cooper, the album that started this trend. "Public Private Breakdown" hits closer to the Alice of old, and the jazzy, upbeat "Holy Water" and ghoulish "Dynamite Road" (a descendant of "The Devil Went Down To Georgia," I think) make for good fun, with deliveries reminiscent of the last album.

Unsurprisingly, the two best songs on the album are the singles and nothing else quite reaches the same level of quality, but it is a great pair of singles. "Paranoiac Personality" has a stomping swagger reminiscent of "Go To Hell" and, yes, it sometimes sounds like "Cult Of Personality"; meanwhile, much like DaDa, the title track opens this album with a sinister and fascinatingly creepy specter that promises great things, if only the rest of the album would continue in that direction. Once again, not so, but I'd love to hear an album's worth of material done in the style of "Paranormal"; after the monumental power of songs like "I Am Made Of You" and "Last Man On Earth" from Welcome 2 My Nightmare, it's clear that Alice still has a lot to gain from experimenting with different styles.

Paranormal reunites the surviving members of the original Alice Cooper on several tracks, a move precipitated by "I'll Bite Your Face Off," "A Runaway Train," and "When Hell Comes Home" from Welcome 2 My Nightmare. Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, Michael Bruce, and Steve Hunter make scattered appearances throughout the album, but they join together with Alice as a band for two bonus tracks, "Genuine American Girl" and "You And All Of Your Friends." The two songs are stylistically quite similar to what can be found elsewhere on the album, but Alice himself sounds so much more enthusiastic to be back with his old bandmates, and while the songs aren't as conceptually interesting to me as the aforementioned singles, they stand a cut above the rest of Paranormal. I said I'd like to see Alice experimenting again, but just as much, I'd like to hear a full album's worth of reunion material.

Paranormal isn't a very deep album, and it won't take more than one listen to understand the album's spirit, or more than a few songs to sense the direction. Still, Alice is nearly 70 and can still make raucous rock'n'roll to match the best of them, and even on album 27 there are a handful of songs I'll count among his career best. ---ScreamingSteelUS, metalstorm.net

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01. I Am Made Of You 05:32
02. Caffeine 03:24
03. The Nightmare Returns 01:15
04. A Runaway Train Alice Cooper 03:52
05. Last Man On Earth 03:47
06. The Congregation 03:59
07. I'll Bite Your Face Off 04:26
08. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever 03:36				play
09. Ghouls Gone Wild 02:35
10. Something To Remember Me By 03:18				play
11. When Hell Comes Home 04:30
12. What Baby Wants 03:45
13. I Gotta Get Outta Here 04:21
14. The Underture 04:38

Personnel:
Alice Cooper - Vocals, harmonica
Bob Ezrin – Producer
+
Tommy Henriksen - (Associate Producer) Co-songwriter,Guitars,Bass,Keyboards,Vocals,Programming,Engineer,Mixing
Michael Bruce - Guitars, keyboards, backing 
Dennis Dunaway - Bass, backing 
Neal Smith - Drums, percussion, backing vocals
Steve Hunter – guitars
Keith Nelson - Guitars, backing 
Desmond Child - Co-songwriter
Dick Wagner - Co-songwriter / Lead guitar 
Tommy Denander - Guitars 
Vince Gill - Lead guitar 
Ke$ha - Guest vocals 
Rob Zombie - Backing vocals 
John 5 - guitar 
Chuck Garric - Bass
Piggy D - Co-songwriter, and bass 
David Spreng - Co-songwriter and drums 
Kip Winger - backing vocals 
Patterson Hood - guitar 
Damon Johnson - guitar 
Keri Kelli - guitar 
Jimmy DeGrasso - drums 
Pat Buchanan - Guitars
Vicki Hampton - Backing vocals
Wendy Moten - Backing vocals
Scott Williamson - Drums
Jimmie Lee Sloas – Bass

Welcome 2 My Nightmare is the 26th studio album by Alice Cooper, following his 2008 album Along Came a Spider.

The idea for the album came about soon after the thirtieth anniversary of the original Welcome to My Nightmare album, while Cooper was talking with producer Bob Ezrin, who proposed the idea of a sequel to Welcome to My Nightmare. Cooper liked the idea, and decided to recruit previous members of the Alice Cooper band. The concept of the album was described by Cooper as "another nightmare, and this one is even worse than the last one." Cooper said that he had originally intended to make a sequel to his album Along Came a Spider, but decided to make the Nightmare sequel after Ezrin explained that he "wasn't really into it."

The album was completed sometime during early 2011, with Cooper announcing its completion in February 2011 on his radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper. It was first scheduled to be released late in 2011 on Bob Ezrin's Bigger Picture label as part of a deal involved marketing, touring and production work by Bigger Picture for Cooper in the future. The album was then announced as being delayed until some time in 2012 due to Cooper's touring commitments, though it was released on 13 September 2011.

Alice Cooper can still draw crowds to his theatrical shlock-horror stage shows, but many would rather submit to his mock guillotine than listen to his later records. However, by reuniting some of his 70s musicians with Bob Ezrin, producer of 1975's classic Welcome to My Nightmare, he has rediscovered his mojo. The sequel nods to the old glam stomp but is a thoroughly inventive, modern-sounding record, with unlikely shifts ranging from an Auto-Tuned ballad to Tom Waits-style vaudeville to classical/opera and even a duet with Ke$ha. With the band firing off riffs and the songwriting top drawer, Cooper sounds like he is having a lot of fun. The Congregation is terrific psychedelic hard rock with Glitter Band chants. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever and the Beach Boys-inspired Ghouls Run Wild are as riotous as their titles, while the domestic violence-documenting When Hell Comes Home may be the 63-year-old's most affecting song since Only Women Bleed. --- Dave Simpson, guardian.co.uk/music

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