Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare [3LP]

Alice Cooper reopened his most famous bad dream with Welcome 2 My Nightmare, the 2011 sequel to his 1975 classic, presented here as a gatefold 3LP reissue.

To return to the nightmare world of Steven, Alice reunited with Bob Ezrin, the producer who had helped shape the original, and brought surviving members of the classic Alice Cooper band back for several songs. The result is a theatrical, darkly funny record that bounces between styles the way a haunted house bounces between rooms.

"I'll Bite Your Face Off" is pure garage-rock menace with a swaggering strut, and "Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" is exactly as gleefully ridiculous as it sounds. "What Baby Wants", a duet with Ke$ha, drags pop glitter into the shadows.

Ezrin's production is big and cinematic, full of sudden stylistic swerves and the kind of stagey flourishes that made the first Nightmare such a spectacle, with Alice playing ringmaster to the whole twisted carnival. Spread across three LPs in a gatefold sleeve, the album gets plenty of room to sprawl.

For fans who grew up with the original, it is a devilish homecoming, and for newer converts it is proof that the godfather of shock rock never lost his sense of humour.