It's been more than 35 years since Alice Cooper's first `Nightmare' and, in that time, the music landscape has gone through some drastic changes. But Steven, the main character from the original LP, has stuck with Alice through thick and thin, making sporadic return appearances over the decades, culminating with his last album,
Along Came A Spider, in which Steven evolved into the title character, a vicious serial killer... who was merely a figment of the demented lad's imagination.
With the long-belated return of Bob Ezrin to oversee the proceedings, "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" is a departure from the mostly-hard-edged sounds that musical chameleon Cooper's been churning out for a little over a decade. Like the original album, there are numerous radio-friendly pop songs as well as musical and lyrical oddities that only Alice could get away with. But does it work as a follow-up to his first solo album? Yes and no. But in my humble opinion, this is his best studio album since 1994's "
Last Temptation," an album which was sort of a prequel to the original "Nightmare" and has never been recognized as the masterpiece that it is (thanks to the record company's complete and total mishandling of the release). Doesn't quite match the brilliance of either album, but it tags close behind.
"Welcome 2 My Nightmare" opens strong with the slow, haunting "I Am Made of You," which samples piano riffs from the original album. Unfortunately the song features an inordinate amount of Auto-Tune, which is a bit off-putting upon first listen. (Memo to record label: Give us a non-Auto Tuned version!) The pace immediately picks up on the bouncy rock song "Caffeine," which is basically a retread of "Can't Sleep, the Clowns Will Eat Me," a bonus track that appeared on various releases of "Brutal Planet" and "Dragontown." It drops down about 75 notches for "The Nightmare Returns," a brief transitional piece featuring Steven reluctantly drifting off to sleep which, again, samples the piano riffs from the old album. Quickly rolling along, Alice jumps on The Nightmare Express, otherwise known as "A Runaway Train," for an odd melding of hard rock and country guitar riffs.
Next, the train crashes and Alice discovers he's the "Last Man on Earth" (or IS he?) in a show-tunesy song with a New Orleans flair that's more than a little reminiscent of "Some Folks." Again the pace picks up as Alice welcomes us to "The Congregation," a fun rock number which incorporates a chorus who seem to think they're singing background on The Ramones' "Blitzkreig Bop." Next up is "I'll Bite Your Face Off," the first single, which is kind of a throwback to the Rolling Stones-ish early garage-band sound. This is a track that would've been better suited for his "Eyes of Alice Cooper" or "Dirty Diamonds" albums. But the next song juts off in a completely new direction for the shock-rocker (and it is a shock!)...
"Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" is a bizarre techno-disco song in which Alice raps while the chorus sings "The Winkies Chant" from "The Wizard of Oz." Odd, but it grows on you. Next, he hits the beach to check out the zombie chicks in "Ghouls Gone Wild," an annoyingly catchy song derived from "Summertime Blues." The pace drops for the obligatory ballad, "Something to Remember Me By," which isn't a bad song, but there's no bite (musically or lyrically) and it feels wildly out of place on this disc. Alice has said that he's singing this to one of the corpses on the beach, but without a punchline ending, it just comes off as a ballad.
The pace increases but the mood darkens for "When Hell Comes Home," a gritty song about child/spousal abuse which takes an even nastier turn as it nears the conclusion. Hard, heavy early Black Sabbath sorta sound on that track. Then he turns the beat around for "What Baby Wants," a very polished, `80s-ish sounding pop-rock song that features Ke$ha as the devil. Appropriate. As with the original album (as well as "Alice Cooper Goes to Hell," "The Last Temptation" and others), Alice decides it's time to go home with "I Gotta Get Outta Here," a likable light rock number with an amusing(ly) twist(ed) ending. It all culminates with the "The Underture" (which owes a huge debt to The Who's "Tommy"), a beautiful orchestral tune that incorporates bits of every song from the two "Nightmare" albums.
There's a handful of bonus tracks which vary from release to release -- and that's a total annoyance for those of us who are completionists. From a storytelling perspective, only releasing "Under the Bed" as a bonus track was a huge disservice to this album. Clearly it was the bridge between "Caffeine" and "The Nightmare Returns," depicting the crash before fading to sleep. The song managed to recapture some of the eerie mood of the original album, melded with Desmond Child-heavy, "Hey Stoopid" type of ballads, and it flows beautifully between the two tracks. So they cut it. The bonus that's on the majority of releases is his cover of The Animals' "We Gotta Get Out of This Place." It's unquestionably one his best covers (right up there with "Talk Talk" and "I Got a Line on You") but it's such a well-known song that it doesn't really fit on W2MN -- plus it seems redundant after "I Gotta Get Outta Here." And the live tracks are decent, but basically throwaway performances of classic tunes.
The biggest sin is that, for a concept album, the songs don't flow all that well. The pacing teeter-totters from track to track, and the transitions aren't as fluid as they were on the first "Nightmare." The original LP also had a trio of songs that were really creepy ("Years Ago," "Steven," "The Awakening") and nothing here really matches the style or intensity of those tunes (excluding bonus "Under the Bed;" "The Nightmare Returns" initially seems promising, but the track is only like only a minute long, and the bulk of it is lifted straight from the first album). And there's a little too much humor and lots of moments that verge on parody. Plus there's way too many rip-offs of other songs (Stones, Beach Boys, Alice himself) for this to be in the same league as the first album, which was wildly original.
When you think "sequel," you think something that brings back original characters, tells a new story and evokes the feel of the first. Two out of three. So much time has passed that I don't think it would be possible to replicate the feeling of the first nightmare. Hence the 4 stars instead of 5. All in all, it's a fun, memorable album (and it's GREAT to have Ezrin's influence and classic band members back) but it doesn't sound as much like a sequel as "Alice Cooper Goes to Hell" does. W2MN is just another companion, much like "Da Da," "Last Temptation," "Brutal Planet," "Dragontown" and "Along Came a Spider." And a great companion it is.