ALICE COOPER

The Revenge Of Alice Cooper

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The return of the original Alice Cooper band has edged closer these past few years, though sometimes it takes a while for all the stars to fully align. Back in 2011, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith reunited with Cooper to perform at their Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in New York, followed some months later by guest appearances on Cooper's solo album Welcome 2 My Nightmare. The trio reprised their cameo roles on 2017's Paranormal (and also fetched up on stage during Cooper's UK tour) and 2021 followup Detroit Stories, an album that found Cooper in suitably nostalgic mood.

These incremental shifts turned into something more substantial last year, when the four men hooked up in a Connecticut studio with their old producer.

“It all came together in an odd moment of me going to Bob Ezrin: ‘Bob, would you be interested in doing an album with the original guys?” Cooper explained to Classic Rock. “When the two of us started talking about it. We said that this could go way left or it could go way south. But we decided we could give it a shot.”

The result is The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, the group’s first major studio collaboration since 1973’s Muscle Of Love. Of course, it isn’t quite the full reunion. Lead guitarist Glen Buxton passed away in October 1997, aged just 49. His absence is certainly felt on The Revenge - but the void is partly filled by two guitarists forged in Buxton’s own swashbuckling image: Rick Tedesco and Gyasi Heus.

Buxton happens to be here bodily too, albeit fleetingly. His unreleased guitar part from the archives forms the molten core of fiery rock’n’roller What Happened To You. He's also on previously unheard bonus track Return Of The Spiders 2025, recorded during the sessions for 1970's Easy Action. But these feel more like sentimental concessions, albeit highly efficient ones, than album essentials.